


Piety

by Paganpunk2



Category: Father Brown (2013)
Genre: Angst, Bisexuality, Cooking, Cooking Lessons, F/M, Family, Family Bonding, Family Feels, Family Ritual, First Love, Growing Up, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Maternal worrying, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pie, True Love, surrogate parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:29:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 32,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29512536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paganpunk2/pseuds/Paganpunk2
Summary: Mrs. McCarthy may never make a religious man of Sidney Carter, but she can claim credit for making him reverent about pie.Five times, from ages 14 to 25, that pie marked an important moment in Sid's life.
Relationships: Sid Carter/Inspector Sullivan, Sid Carter/Original Character(s)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35





	1. October 1944

“Sidney Carter! Just where do you think you are going with that black eye?”

Sid paused with one foot on the bottom step. He’d been hoping he could sneak upstairs and buy himself a little time to clean up before Mrs. M. saw him. It wouldn’t be questioned if he changed clothes between school and dinner – he was supposed to do that anyway – and even half an hour would give him time to get a cool washcloth on his face. If he could keep the swelling and bruising minimal, there was a chance that the damage would go unnoticed, or at least unremarked on.

It was clearly too late for that now, though how she had noticed his eye from her position at the sink Sid couldn’t even start to guess. The side that Timmy Needham had socked him on had been to the wall, and he’d been careful not to turn his head as he slipped past the kitchen. But then, Mrs. M. had had a knack for knowing when he’d done something wrong since the day he’d been sent to Kembleford, even when he did his utmost to hide his crime.

Sighing, he turned around and trudged back to the kitchen. Mrs. M. was waiting, her face set. “Hmpf,” she let out when he stopped in the doorway. “Who was it this time?”

“Needham.”

_“Needham?_ Oh, Holy Mother, Sidney...” She rolled her eyes heavenward, then shook her head. “Of all the people to pick a fight with, you had to go for the son of the new Inspector?”

“I didn’t start it,” Sid objected. “Honest, I didn’t.”

“Even so, you chose to be part of it once it was started. And now look at you.” She closed the distance between them and pinched his chin with one hand, turning his face so she could see better. Another huff escaped her. “That will swell shut by morning unless we get something cold on it soon. And to think you were going to sneak past without telling me.” She chivvied him towards his usual chair at the kitchen table. “Sit. A black eye like that, and I cannot even remember the last time we had a steak in the house...well, a wet flannel will have to do.”

“I was gonna put one on it upstairs.”

“And hide your trousers for me to find when I do the laundry next, I suppose? I do not appreciate having mending dropped on me as a surprise, especially when I have had to repair tears in those same knees three times over the past two months.”

Sid hung his head, holding the wet cloth he’d been handed against his eye gingerly. “...I know.” It had been his trousers that had led to the fight. No one had had much in the way of new clothing for ages, because the war effort came first in all things. Mrs. M.’s needle managed to keep him as presentable as the other students, and none of the locals would ever have thought to comment on the neat fixes that had extended the life of his thinning and oft-torn things.

But Timmy Needham wasn’t local, and Timmy Needham had decided that the connection between Sid’s worn knees and the calling of his primary guardian was too good to ignore. Sid couldn’t remember exactly what Needham had said to set him off. All he knew was that it had sounded like an insult to Father Brown. That would have been a problem at any time, but it was especially unforgiveable when the Father wasn’t here, or even in the country at all. Stupid France. Stupid war. “...‘M sorry.”

He felt Mrs. M.’s gaze hold steady on him for several more seconds. Then she sighed, and he heard her turn back to the sink. “Is it only the eye?”

“Yeah.” Needham had thrown plenty of other punches, but Sid had danced easily clear of them. “I did win, though,” he offered. “I mean, he looked way worse than me when Mr. Bennett broke it up.”

Something _clink_ ed more firmly in the sink than it ought to have done. “Will you be putting that fact into your next letter to the Father?” Mrs. M. asked acerbically. “Or will you be leaving it up to me to worry him once again with news about all the trouble you have been in since he left?”

...Oh. So his careful exclusion of those episodes from his otherwise open and honest notes had been as pointless as his attempt to sneak upstairs. “You could _not_ tell him,” he said, glancing up hopefully. The over-the-shoulder look that suggestion earned him made his head hang even lower. “...Alright. I’ll tell him.”

“Good. And you can be certain that I will also tell him, and will tell him, too, that you plan to mention the incident yourself.”

He was stuck. Stuck, stuck, stuck. Well, maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as he thought. Father Brown wasn’t going to be happy that Sid had fought Timmy Needham, even if he _had_ won, but he’d appreciate the reason why he’d had to do it.

Or at least, Sid thought he would. It was strange, but he’d been having a hard time reconciling the weekly letters he received with the man he knew was sending them. The written word was insufficient to relay the warmth and acceptance that he’d come to rely on in the four years since his evacuation from the Blitz. Sid needed to hear the Father’s understanding voice, to feel his frequent, affectionate touches. Lacking those things, his certainty about where he stood in his guardian’s eyes was wavering.

A cutting board and a colander full of freshly rinsed vegetables were suddenly set before him. “When that cloth gets warm,” Mrs. M. instructed, “you can wash your hands and then cut these up for dinner. It will be a pie, so make them small pieces.”

Sid looked from his assignment to the woman who’d given it to him. “Isn’t it punishment enough that I have to tell the Father about fighting Needham?” The priest might not have been quite on the front lines, assigned as he was to a medical unit a few miles back from the fighting, but that didn’t make Sid feel any better about sending him bad news from home.

“This is not _punishment.”_ Mrs. M. blew out a long, exasperated breath, but the rigid line of her shoulders softened. “You are fourteen years old. It is high time that you learned how to feed yourself something other than what can be bought from a bakery or a chips stand.”

“What’s wrong with those?”

“Among other things, I have never seen a vegetable come out of either of them.”

“Potatoes are vegetables.” He was pushing his luck, and he knew it, but he was also right.

“Sidney.”

“Oh, alright.”

When the cloth was no longer a soothing temperature, Sid washed his hands and settled down to his task. He was a fair hand with a knife in the woods or the fields – as decent a one as any of the other boys, at least – but cutting up raw food was different than whittling a roasting stick or gutting a fish. Despite the general annoyance he’d lately felt towards anything he didn’t really want to do but had to, he found himself almost enjoying this chore. The varying shapes and resistances of the vegetables kept the work from becoming boring, and the fact that they’d be going into one of Mrs. M.’s delicious pies gave him a reason to care about how they turned out.

“...Good,” the parish secretary nodded approval when he presented his work to her. “Although the onion could stand to be more finely chopped, and the carrot somewhat less so.”

Sid looked down at the pieces he’d dumped back into the colander. “...Not much I can do about the carrots now, Mrs. M.”

What might have been a smile ghosted across her face. “No, I suppose not. And the onion is close enough to the right size for us to be getting on with it as it is. So, what do you think is next?”

“Um...the cooking it all part, I guess? I don’t much fancy it like it is just now. Bit crunchy for a pie.”

“You are correct. Set those aside for the time being, and we’ll start from the beginning...”

He’d had no idea how many details were involved in the making of a simple pie. Even though he’d partaken of dozens of the things in this very kitchen, Sid had never really paid attention to the work that went into them. Heating the pan, seasoning what little chicken their weekly ration had afforded, adding a bit more of their equally scarce butter to the drippings before they put in the vegetables he’d cut up... “Why’re there so many steps?” he groused as he tended the gently burbling filling. “I feel like I’ve forgot half of it already, and you didn’t even tell me how to do the crust yet.”

“You can learn the crust once you have the filling down,” ruled Mrs. M. as she sprinkled flour on the tabletop and dusted her hands. “You seem to be nervous enough as it is, and pastry is far less forgiving than vegetables.”

“I _am_ nervous.” Sid prodded at the contents of the pan with a wooden spoon. “What if it burns? It’d be my fault.” He’d caused enough trouble today without adding ruining dinner to the list.

“It is _not_ going to burn. The heat is exactly where it needs to be.” She left her dough and joined him in front of the hob. After a momentary glance, she took the spoon from his hand and stirred the concoction. Then she put a lid over the whole thing, leaving just a thin gap at the edge for excess steam. “But neither will it cook if you give it too much attention. So take the cloth you were using earlier, re-wet it, then come sit for a few minutes and cool that eye again.”

Back at the table, Sid couldn’t help but send frequent, anxious glances towards the stove. “I don’t like not being able to see it,” he explained when he caught Mrs. M. watching him. “I can’t tell how it is.”

“Yes, you can.” Mrs. M. plopped half of the dough she’d whipped up while Sid was worrying over the filling onto the floured table. A few practiced passes of the rolling pin transformed it into a flat disc. “You can smell it,” she explained as she picked up the bottom crust and draped it expertly over a heavy stoneware pie dish, “and, if you listen carefully, you can hear it.”

Smelling the filling was easy enough, as its aroma already filled the air. Hearing it was more difficult, but if he strained his ears Sid found that he could pick up on the little _pops_ and _blubs_ that the liquid under the chicken and vegetables was letting out. “...Huh. You _can_ hear it.”

“And does it smell or sound as if it is about to burn or boil over?”

“No. I don’t think so. It smells alright. I dunno what it should sound like, though.”

“It should sound just the way it does.” She’d prepared the top crust as quickly as she had the bottom, and it now lay ready and waiting. Straightening up, she fixed Sid with a hard look. “Out of curiosity, what would you do if it sounded wrong?”

He shrugged. “Go check on it? Give it a stir, or see what else it needed?”

“And what if that was not an option?” Seeing Sid’s confusion, she went on. “Suppose you had a twisted ankle, or someone had tied you to your chair. What would you do?”

“I...don’t reckon I’d be cooking a pie?” Storm clouds appeared on Mrs. M.’s brow, so Sid continued quickly. “But if I was already cooking it, which is obviously what you meant, and then one of those things happened...” He trailed off. “Well, there wouldn’t be much I could do, would there? Try and hobble over, or get free, but it’d probably be ruined by then.”

“And how would that make you feel?”

“Pretty awful.”

“Even though it was through no fault of your own that it burned? Even though you heard the warnings, but could do nothing about them because you had no way to get back to it to help?”

Sid pulled the wet cloth away from his face and frowned across the table. “...We’re not talking about the pie anymore, are we, Mrs. M.?”

“No, Sidney, we are not.”

His fingers tangled themselves tightly in the rag. He’d wrung it out well to keep it from dripping, but the pressure of his clenched fist still sent a few fat drops splashing to the floor. “I really didn’t mean it,” he apologized. “Not just today, but everything since...since he left. I don’t even know what I’m doing ‘til I’ve done it, with the fights. I try to tell myself not to get worked up, not to take the bait, but it doesn’t work like it used to. It’s like I don’t know how to laugh it off if-”

“If what?” Mrs. M. prompted when he faltered.

“If he’s not around to share the joke.”

The cloth in his hand was no longer the only source of the moisture between his shoes. He heard Mrs. M. move around the table to him, but he didn’t look up until her feet appeared just short of his splattered tears. Her expression was unreadable as she took the rag and then tilted his head so that she could dab tenderly at his bruised eye.

“...I know you miss him terribly.” Sid didn’t think he’d ever heard her voice come out quite so soft before. “Before he left, he told me the only thing that worried him about going was how you would deal with it. He was afraid you would feel that you had been abandoned again and would act out in response. You are at a hard enough time of life without all the complications this war has brought; as the Father put it, even most of the saints likely got up to no good when they were your age.

“But that is faint consolation when he hears in every other letter from me that you had another brawl, or skipped out on school, or were lingering a bit too long in front of something expensive down at the shops. You have gotten much better about all those things since you came to us. This recent regression might not be a surprise, given the situation, but...it is a disappointment.”

Sid flinched. Being a disappointment was the story of his life. He’d been a disappointment to his father before he was even born, then to his mother as a small boy. He’d glommed onto a neighboring family for a couple of years, but his first pick-up for petty theft had ruined that. Looking back, involving the family’s actual son in his childish grab-and-dash had probably ruled out any hope of a second chance. From there, it hadn’t taken long for him to realize that most people only really had your back if abandoning you would put them at greater risk than staying would.

Kembleford was different, though. More importantly, Father Brown was different, and Mrs. M., too. They expected a person to own up to the things they did and to suffer whatever consequences came from it, but abandonment, at least by them, was never one of those consequences. That made the idea of disappointing them a hundred times worse, because Sid knew that they wouldn’t even cut their losses and run if he went well off the rails. They’d just sit there and suffer, being disappointed over and over again. It was far, far too easy for him to picture.

Maybe that was the solution, the thing to do when he felt like he was about to be bad. Words of advice were enough to give him self-control when they could be reaffirmed, in person, by the man who’d spoken them, but that wasn’t the world Sid lived in right now. Where words were failing, images of a pair of very dear and very disappointed faces might do the trick. It was worth a try, anyway.

Mrs. M. had stopped dabbing at his eye and was instead brushing fresh tears from his cheeks. “Now, there is no point in crying over spilled milk,” she instructed, though she sounded like she might have been on the verge of doing so herself. “Especially not when the pie filling is due for a good stir.”

Sid sniffled, nodded, and went to the pan. Mrs. M. followed him. “Well, what do you think?” she asked as he turned the filling over with the spoon. “Is it done?”

The question had been about the filling, Sid knew, but not only about the filling. “...Yeah,” he replied, his voice cracking. “I think so. I mean, like I said before, I don’t want to burn it.”

She glanced sideways at him. “I have every confidence that you will not,” she said. “As such, I expect you to make the pie filling every Tuesday moving forward. And when we know you have that part of it down, you can learn to make the crust.”

“You’ll even tell me how you make it so flaky?” The flakiness was the best part, after all.

“Only if you behave yourself.”

“...I’ll try, Mrs. M.”

She squeezed his elbow. “I know you will. You can start by going upstairs and changing out of those torn trousers. Bring them back down with you so that I can mend them while the pie bakes. Any homework you have can come with you, too. And if you have none,” she added, “that means you have time to learn how to fix your trousers for yourself.”

“I have _loads_ of homework.” Loads was an exaggeration, and his original plan had been to only do the half that was somewhat interesting, but it was better than sewing.

This time her smile was full and knowing. “Yes, I thought you might.”


	2. February 1946

Sid loped through the wintry forest with a bulky paper-wrapped package under his arm and a ridiculously happy smile on his face. An unknowing onlooker might have questioned the sheer joy he was radiating. It was the hardest time of year in terms of food and warmth, after all, with many basics still rare, expensive, or scrupulously rationed despite victory having been achieved in Europe nine months earlier. The woods were at their least welcoming, all scraggly branches and ankle-deep drifts where the wind had piled last week’s light snow. And it was Tuesday afternoon, when a youth of his age would normally have been found in class.

None of that mattered to Sid, though. All the dismaying moments of the past two years had fallen away a few days earlier, when Father Brown had finally been demobilised and allowed to return home. Sid was still so buoyant over their reunion that he hardly noticed the nipping chill in the air and the low-level ache of hunger in his stomach. The sun was bright above the denuded treetops, too, and for the first time in weeks it carried a hint of real heat when he turned his cheek to it. As if that wasn’t enough, it was a school holiday, and one of Sid’s last at that because he’d already decided not to go back at the fall term. He was sixteen now, old enough to stop, and although Mrs. M. wasn’t happy about his decision she hadn’t seemed surprised when he’d told her.

She’d be surprised _and_ happy when she saw what Sid was bringing home, however. Her grumbling over the state of the produce available in this coldest of seasons made the local shopkeepers brace themselves when she darkened their doorways. “And how,” she’d accosted Mr. Stevens, the greengrocer, just last week, “can a person be expected to live on such paltry pickings as these? I know you can only sell what you can get hold of, but someone must do something about these pathetic vegetables. Look at these carrots, no bigger around than my pinkie and tapering off just as fast! And at such a dear price, besides!”

Sid, standing behind Mrs. M. with their shopping basket as she went on, had sent the beleaguered Mr. Stevens a shrug and a commiserating look. It was his fault that she fretted so much over their food and clothing these days, though he couldn’t help the growth spurts he kept having. He wished he _could_ help them, if only to stop the frustrated huffs that the poor woman let out every time she caught a glimpse of his bony wrists (would he ever find sleeves that were actually long enough again, he wondered?) or watched him wolf down his entire portion of a meal in thirty seconds flat and then leave the table with hungry eyes.

“Could put a brick on top of my head,” he’d joked after one particularly weighty sigh. Mrs. M.’s reaction had been lukewarm at best, and he hadn’t repeated the effort to jolly her out of her cares. They were too heavy for levity to lift by itself.

There’d be no _hmpf_ ing tonight, though. Sid was sure of that.

She was seated at the table and picking through a batch of especially anemic green beans when he bounded into the presbytery kitchen. “Oh, there you are,” she greeted, meeting his grin with a distracted frown. “Come and help me sort these dreadful-looking things.”

“Nah, Mrs. M. I’ve got a better idea.”

Her eyebrows rose in immediate disbelief at what Sid swiftly realized had sounded like backtalk. “These,” he added, placing the package he’d toted through the woods before her. “Forget those ugly ones. There’s some nice beans in there, and other stuff, too.”

Flashing an even broader grin than before at the look of shock on Mrs. M.’s face, he moved to the sink to wash his hands. The cutting board and the paring knife were in the drainboard alongside, as was the colander. Once he’d dried off, he grabbed all three of these typical Tuesday night tools and turned back to the table.

“It’s chicken you got for tonight’s pie, right? Only I grabbed the veg thinking it would be, so the flavor might be off if you splurged on steak or something.” Once he’d mastered his first basic chicken pie filling, Mrs. M. had branched out in her buying, stretching their rationing allowances by choosing cheaper cuts and organ meat that were more palatable in a pie than they were on their own. Sid had consequently had ample practice at balancing whatever vegetables were available so that they matched the protein on hand. He still couldn’t make a decent pie crust to save his life, but he felt he had a bit of a knack for adapting the fillings.

As he sat down, Sid discovered that the package hadn’t yet been touched. “C’mon, Mrs. M.,” he urged. “They're not gonna get any fresher while you’re staring at them.”

She sent him a troubled glance, but her fingers began to loosen the string holding everything together. The stiff brown paper unfolded itself neatly, revealing a small yellow onion, three long, thick multicolored carrots, two large handfuls of plump green beans, several dozen bulging pea pods, and a moderately-sized head of broccoli. The sweet, earthy aroma of the dirt that still clung to the carrots swelled to fill the kitchen. Sid could see Mrs. M.’s nose tremble appreciatively as she inhaled the fresh perfume of the bounty he’d brought. Her mouth, however, remained set, and furrows were deepening on her brow.

“...Sidney, where did you get these?”

“A friend,” he answered easily. He’d known that question would come, and he’d prepared for it. His response wasn’t technically the truth, since he’d never had a conversation with the provider of the vegetables until today. But it wasn‘t exactly a lie, either, because they’d chatted while he’d been earning his supper. ‘Acquaintance’ would have been more accurate, Sid supposed, but he saw no reason to split hairs.

“None of your schoolmates has vegetables of this quality lying about the house. I would have heard.”

Sid believed that wholeheartedly, but he bit his tongue. Mrs. M. was already fixing towards aggravation, and that wasn’t how this was supposed to go. Being cheeky would only make things worse. “From an adult friend,” he clarified.

“What ‘adult friend’ would this be?” A trace of fear had entered her voice. “Were you out in the woods again today? Meeting with this...person?”

Uh-oh. “Well, yeah, but it’s not-”

“You know I do not like you wandering around in the forest by yourself anymore. Going out there alone is much more dangerous than it used to be.”

She wasn’t wrong. They'd all heard the stories about returning soldiers who, struggling to re-integrate into their own communities, ran off to camp like vagrants in the familiar roughness of wild countryside such as that which still existed near Kembleford. Now that the war was over, the overgrown assarts that Sid had come to know through frequent weekend and summer holiday rambles were attracting fresh attention from black marketeers, too. While he’d seen signs of a general uptick in forest traffic, though, he’d never actually come across anyone threatening. “Yeah, I know, but-”

“But you went out there anyway.” A beat passed. “You would have been welcome to join the Father on his visiting around the parish, you know.”

“Welcome by him, yeah, but who wants to dish out tea for an extra mouth right now?” Never mind, he added in his head, that parish visits were the most boring part of Father Brown’s job. “Least in the forest no one felt obligated to feed me.”

Mrs. M. paused, her expression startled but pleased. “...That is a very mature consideration for you to have made,” she said. “And one that I confess I had not thought of. However,” her face hardened again, “you have yet to tell me who this ‘adult friend’ of yours is. _They_ clearly felt some obligation to feed you, unless you have done something I would rather not imagine in order to get hold of these vegetables.”

The implications of her last statement stung. He hadn’t stolen hardly anything in more than a year now, unless you counted the occasional apple or pear from an unattended orchard or the rabbits he sometimes snared in the parts of the woods that belonged to the absent Lord Montague. “I didn’t nick it, if that’s what you’re getting at,” he countered in a flat voice. “I mean, I’d have to find stuff that nice to nick in the first place, wouldn’t I?”

“There are worse crimes than theft, Sidney, and they seem to be increasing in regularity with each passing day. Now you say you intend to quit school, and I see you spending more and more time wandering idly about the village or out in the woods...just tell me that you are not involved with any of the shenanigans that so many others around here have gotten themselves into lately.”

“I’m _not._ I’ve never even seen a black marketeer, so far’s I know.” Although if black marketeers had regular access to vegetables like the ones he‘d gotten today, and were able to spend days in the woods without facing a lecture later on besides, he envied them.

“Then where did you get these vegetables?”

Sid shifted uncomfortably in his chair. His reply wasn't going to go over well, even if it was an honest one. “...I promised I wouldn’t tell. But they’re _fine,_ Mrs. M.,” he insisted. “There’s nothing off about how I got them.”

“No reputable adult would make you give a promise like that.” She began to bundle the paper back together, tying the string over it with shaking hands. “And as much as I would like to have such fine ingredients for the first pie we make together for the Father, we are far from hungry enough to be eating anything with such uncertain and possibly unsavory origins.”

She pushed the package across the table to him. “So, since you will not tell me exactly where you got these things, and how, you will have to take them back. If you cannot safely return them to where you got them, then you can leave them on the doorstep at the Wainwrights. All three of their little ones have a nasty croup, and they could do with some good, nutritious food.”

For a long moment all Sid could do was look helplessly between Mrs. M. and the produce he had carried home with such earnest intentions. “...You’re not serious?”

“I am. If you refuse to tell me where those vegetables came from, I will not have them in this house.”

“Can’t you just trust me when I say they’re alright?”

“I want to believe that they are, but you are not making it easy for me to do so.”

“But-"

“No, Sidney.”

He knew that tone. The conversation was over. He rose slowly from his chair, then picked up the package and cradled it as if it was a baby. “...I just wanted us to have decent stuff for the pie,” he stated, all frustration.

A sympathetic quaver ran through Mrs. M.’s pursed lips, but her tone was unmoved. “As fine a sentiment as that may be, it is no excuse for wrongdoing.”

“But I didn’t...” Oh, what was the use? She wouldn’t take the vegetables unless he broke his promise, and he didn’t feel right doing that. Sid blew out a long breath and shook his head. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. I’ll take them somewhere else, I guess.”

_Where_ to take them was the question. He mulled it over as he stepped into the freezing evening. He could safely return them to his source, but it might cause some hurt feelings. The Wainwrights were a deserving enough option to have suited him on any other day – Jacob Wainwright had been a good boss when Sid had done a little day labor for him last summer, and the three young children of the family were pretty cute – but he was loath to see the food in his arms end up anywhere but at the presbytery. There had to be a way to work around Mrs. M.’s suspicions. He just needed time to figure out what that way was.

Two hours later, though, he was no closer to an answer. He’d taken refuge in the church, where he sat with his legs slung over the back of the pew in front of him and his gaze fixed on the velvety blackness between the ceiling beams. So focused was he on his quandary that he didn’t realize he was no longer alone until Father Brown’s amused voice spoke from the end of the row. “Ah, yes. The last place she would look for you.”

Sid glanced over at him. “And the first place you looked?”

“Of course.” The priest slid in beside him. “Actually, that’s not quite true. I did check your bedroom first. I thought you might have climbed the drainpipe and come back inside through the window.”

“How’d I’d‘ve done that with this?” Sid asked, indicating the package on his other side. He could probably have managed to climb the drainpipe one-handed, if he’d wanted, but it wouldn’t have been a quiet ascent.

“I considered that. It had been long enough since you’d left, however, that you might have taken that elsewhere and then returned, and now simply been trying to avoid Mrs. McCarthy.”

“Mm. True.”

“Since it _is_ still in your possession, though,” Father Brown went on, “would you mind if I look at it?”

“Take it,” Sid offered, bringing his feet down to the floor and then passing the bundle over. “I sure as hell don’t know what to do with it. Oh...sorry.” Yeah, that was the thing to do, curse in the church and get them _both_ pissed off at him.

The Father merely smiled. “I’ll trade you,” he said, holding up Sid’s jacket. “Mrs. McCarthy flew into a bit of a panic when I pointed out that you’d left without it. I’d avoid sniffling or sneezing around her for the next few days, unless you want to be confined to bed.”

“The only upside of that would be missing school. And I’d still have to catch up on the work after.”

“Yes, you would.” Paper rustled as Father Brown untied the string that Mrs. McCarthy had done up. “...Well, Sid, I can see why she was concerned.”

Sid paused in the act of pulling on his jacket to throw his hands in the air. “They’re perfectly straight vegetables! I thought at least _you’d_ believe me about that.”

“I _do_ believe you,” the Father assured. “But I also understand why she had trouble doing so.”

“Because once a thief, always a bloo-...a thief,” Sid mocked.

“No,” the priest replied, quickly and firmly. “...No. Please don’t try to assign that opinion to either myself or Mrs. McCarthy. You know it’s neither true nor how we feel.”

He grimaced, and felt a prick of guilty tears at the backs of his eyes. “...Yeah, I know.”

Father Brown closed the package up again and handed it back. “These are finer vegetables than we were getting at the demobilisation camp. I’m surprised anything like them is available around here by any means at all, legal or otherwise.”

“...I’d tell you if I could. Where I got them. But I promised.”

“Yes, Mrs. McCarthy said.” They sat quietly for a long moment. “...I have a thought, Sid, that might provide a satisfactory end to this little misunderstanding.”

“What is it?” He’d do just about anything at this point if it stood a chance of letting him put these damned vegetables into a pie.

“While I’m well aware of what your answer would be were I to suggest that we actually step into the confessional, it occurs to me that you might be willing to share your secret if I agree to treat whatever you tell me as though it had been said within that context.”

Sid chewed at his lower lip. “So it’d be like when you know something from a legit confession, but can’t even tell the police about it?”

“Correct.”

“Mrs. M. outranks the police, though. What?” he asked as Father Brown laughed. He felt a smirk creep across his own face. “...She’s scarier than them, anyway.”

“She certainly has her moments. But wherever she may fall in relation to the police, she doesn’t outrank God. And since the seal of the confession is a holy promise, I can assure you that she won’t be hearing any details from me.”

Sid didn’t really care one way or the other about God entering into things. It was enough that Father Brown had said he wouldn‘t tell anyone. “Then how’ll it work? You’ll just walk into the kitchen and say yeah, the veg is all fine, and Mrs. M. will go for it?”

“I think there’s a good chance of that being exactly what happens. But we won’t know for sure unless we try. I hope it works,” he added. “I’ve been hearing about your pie fillings every week for the past eighteen months, and while Mrs. McCarthy's praise of them leads me to think that you could produce a perfectly edible result with the sad excuses for vegetables she was glaring at a short while ago, I’d much rather see what you can do with decent ingredients.”

“...She didn’t really bore you with talk about pie fillings all that time, did she?” The idea made Sid wish he’d spiced his own letters up a bit more instead of just litanying the routine of his days.

“It wasn’t boring at all. It was very sweet. I was delighted that the two of you found something to share in my absence.” He caught Sid’s eye. “I wouldn’t want my return to sully that special routine in any way.”

Sid gave in with a sigh. “Widow Bentley.”

When Father Brown’s obvious astonishment had passed, he favored Sid with a broad and proud grin. “I don’t think the Widow Bentley has spoken to anyone from the village in fifteen years,” he marveled. “She won’t even acknowledge me when I drop off a goodwill basket, and she was quite devout before her husband died. She really gave you those vegetables?“

“Yeah. Well, I mean, not so much _gave_ them to me. They weren’t exactly free.” Reading curiosity in the Father’s face, Sid went on. “Mrs. M. doesn’t like me going into the woods much anymore. But you already knew that, yeah?”

“She may have mentioned it one or two dozen times since I came home.”

“I’m not doing anything up there I shouldn’t be.” Nope, he couldn’t hold the line with Father Brown’s patient, mind-reading gaze on him. “Not really. Just, you know, a rabbit here and there, that sort of thing. The point is, I’m not moving stolen goods or whatever else she thinks I’m doing. It’s just nice to walk out in the quiet sometimes, to see what you see. Watch things go through their cycles. Like watching people here in the village, but less hectic.

“Anyway, this one way I like to take a lot goes right behind the Widow’s cottage. You ever been behind her house?” Father Brown shook his head. “She’s got a world-class green thumb, she has. Huge garden, growing all sorts of great stuff. She’s got chickens and everything back there. I guess that’s why she never comes into town; she doesn’t need to. She just does for herself.

“Well, one day last summer I was leaning over her fence, looking at this weird plant I’d never seen before. I wasn’t touching anything,” he added quickly. “I was just looking. And she caught me. I looked up and there she was, all of three feet away, and holding the biggest, sharpest pair of gardening shears I’ve ever seen in my life.

“I dunno why I didn’t just take off, because she was every bit as terrifying as the kids whisper about her being. But I didn’t run, and I realized there was something kind of sad about her. She looked like she really wanted me to not be about to steal from her – which, again, I wasn’t, I wouldn’t even have known if that thing I was looking at was ripe or not – but also like she fully expected that to be why I was there.

“So I said hello. She didn’t say anything back, and I went on and told her hey, I’m just spectatin’ on your horticulture, no harm meant. She kind of smiled at that, I think – you know, how Mrs. M. does when she’s amused despite herself?” Father Brown nodded. “Like that.

“And since then, every time I go past her place and she’s outside, or I see her peeking through the window, I throw her a little wave. She never waves back or anything, or didn’t used to. Until today.” Sid shrugged. “Today she saw me, and she waved at me like she wanted me to come closer. When I did, she said she had a harvest to get in, and if I’d help her with it she’d pay me.

“I figured she had to be crazy, because who has a harvest to get in during February? But she did. She’s got this little greenhouse that she keeps a fire going in all winter. Cor, I don’t think I’ve ever smelled anything as good as walking into that place.” He closed his eyes, remembering. “The smoke, and the warm dirt, and the plants...it was like the first day of spring, but in the middle of winter. It was brilliant.

“So we picked everything together. Some stuff I’d never picked before, but she showed me how. And she was telling me as we went along about how she times her planting so that everything’s ready within a few days of everything else. She’s been growing a winter harvest in that greenhouse for so long now that she’s got it down pat. She wasn’t very happy with the onions – I think she thought they’d be bigger than they were – but everything else was perfect. I mean, you saw what she gave me. It’s as good as anything the big farmers around here grow.

“It only took a few hours. She said she doesn’t feel the need to eat as much as she used to, so she doesn’t grow much more than what she’ll use up before the next harvest. When we were done, she paid me, and I came back.” Sid shrugged again. “And now we’re here.”

Father Brown considered him for a moment. “Did you know she was going to pay you in vegetables before you started?”

Sid looked away. “...No. But it was fine.”

“Preferable, even?”

There was a knowing tone in the Father’s voice. “...Alright. She tried to give me money,” he admitted. “But I asked if I could have some vegetables instead.” He dared a bashful glance at the gently smiling priest. “It’s the first time me and Mrs. M. are making you a pie together. I know she bought the best stuff she could for it, but what she could get is just sad. When I saw the Widow’s harvest, I didn’t want her cash. It was enough money to buy crap pie veg for the next month, but I just wanted some good ingredients to work with. Even if I only got enough for one meal.”

“One special meal.”

Sid felt a faint blush rise into his cheeks. “...Yeah.”

“One special meal which," Father Brown went on, “I am now looking forward to even more than I was before. And that’s saying something, because some of Mrs. McCarthy’s letters left me salivating.”

“C’n you say that in a church?” Sid joked. “Salivating?”

“I certainly hope so, because we both just did,” riposted the Father. They beamed at one another for a moment. “...Well, we don’t seem to have been struck by lightning, so perhaps it’s time we headed back to Mrs. McCarthy and soothed her worries. But I have to ask, Sid,” he added as they stood up and started towards the door, “why Widow Bentley made you promise not to tell anyone where you got the vegetables from.”

“She didn’t say.” He thought back over what the old woman had said to him while they were working in her greenhouse. “Maybe,” he said slowly, “she was just trying to protect herself.”

“How so?”

“Well, it’s like Mrs. M.’s been clucking about. There’re more people in the woods now, some of them maybe not so nice, and the Widow lives by herself. She’s fine like that – she didn’t seem lonely or anything, just like she’s one of the sort who prefer to be left alone most of the time – but if the wrong people found out about what she had in her greenhouse, and what she has in the cellar now, she might not be fine for long.”

“...Yes,” the Father agreed slowly. “I think that quite astute conclusion is probably the correct one.” His hand landed on Sid’s shoulder and squeezed. “You did go and grow up a fair bit while I was gone, didn’t you?”

Sid knew that the priest wasn’t just referring to the fact that they were now nearly the same height. “Did I have a choice?”

“Not about some aspects of the process, no. But I’d say you’ve done well in the others, especially given the circumstances.” Several silent steps passed. “...I’m just sorry that I missed it.”

He had to swallow hard before he spoke to make sure that his voice wouldn’t break. “Yeah. But you’re here now, so...”

They had reached the door of the presbytery. “So let’s have a pie,” said Father Brown, reaching for the handle. “...All together.”


	3. August 1950

The city was sweltering in the August heat. Sid glanced back over his shoulder with something like longing at the building he’d just exited. It was stupid to wish that he could stay in prison for the last few weeks of his reduced sentence (reduced for good behavior, at that, which still made him laugh when he thought about it), but at least the thick concrete walls had kept the air inside cool.

“All right?” asked a guard coming on for his shift. He stopped and looked Sid up and down, from his newly issued shoes to the street clothes and porkpie hat he’d been wearing when he was processed in four months earlier. “Not about to get wobbly, are you?”

“Nah. Just bleedin’ hot out here.” It had been nice when he’d gone in. Springtime, mild evenings, warm, pleasant days. It suddenly smacked Sid in the face that he’d spent an entire summer indoors. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d seen a tree.

“Good. Had to check; some don’t take it well, being let out.”

Sid shot the guard – Mattis, it was, Sid had known all of the guards by name within the first three days, a talent that had served him well – a wry grin. “Not my first time in or out.”

“That’s right,” Mattis nodded. “Round two for you.” A blaring horn on the street beyond the last gate required him to pause. “...Maybe don’t go for a round three?” he suggested when the sound had died back into the city’s general hubbub.

“It’s good advice, that is.”

“But will you take it?”

Sid shrugged. “Who knows? I didn’t come back to London to tour its jails, but things happen.”

Mattis sighed. “Well...here’s hoping they’re good things from here on.”

“Thanks. See ya ‘round.”

That last had surely given the guard all sorts of confidence that he wouldn’t be re-offending, Sid thought sarcastically as he stepped onto the sidewalk. The gate clanged shut behind him, and he felt the freedom of urban anonymity seep into his bones. He walked on, no longer a prisoner, just another nameless face in the gaggle of humanity that was trudging back and forth under the mid-afternoon sun.

The heat was so bad that he couldn’t even rally the desire to smoke his first post-sentence cigarette. He still stopped as soon as he saw a tobacconist, because the prison-issued smokes he had were rubbish, but there wasn’t much joy in tucking the unopened pack away for later. At these temperatures, he wasn’t going to want to light up until near midnight. It was a long time to go without fulfilling such a basic physical craving.

But maybe he could fulfill another craving in the meantime. The food in prison had been even worse than the cigarettes. It hadn’t taken him long after his arrival from Kembleford three years ago to fall into the take-away habit that his London peers were dedicated to, but tonight he wanted something else. Tonight, Sid decided as he turned onto a street lined with shabby shops and surveyed the stands on which some less perishable wares had been set out, he wanted a pie.

He’d been paid a meager wage for the work he’d done during his sentence, but most of his earnings had gone towards keeping himself in shitty cigarettes and cheap writing paper from the prison commissary. What he had left after the tobacconist’s would be enough for his ingredients, but then he’d be skint. That was alright, though. Zinnia’s seedy flat boasted a small oven, and she made enough with her nightclub gigs that the gas was usually on. And if for some reason it happened to be off this month, Sid smirked, he could always just put the pie out in the sun and give it an hour or two.

“Hey, mate,” he addressed the butcher as he waited for his paltry change from the bit of chicken he’d just purchased, “silly question, I know, but what day is it?”

“So hot out I can barely remember myself,” the butcher laughed. “It’s Tuesday.”

“Tuesday?” The serendipity was almost unbelievable. “No Mick?”

The butcher squinted at him, amused. “‘Vi ever lied to you?”

Sid smiled happily at this man he’d known for all of two minutes. “Nope. Tuesday’s the answer I was looking for, anyway.” The best day of the week.

His hands were full, so he tapped at Zinnia’s door with the toe of one of his new shoes. The prison was only a quarter mile or so away from her walk-up, but his feet were killing him. Far be it from him to complain about free clothes, but he would have preferred his old shoes to these pinching things.

Zinnia’s shocked stare was made extra dramatic by the heavy eyeliner she had on. “Siddie, baby!” she squealed, clapping her hands. “You’re home!”

His smile widened as she hustled him into the apartment. “They let you out of the joint six weeks early,” she mock-complained, every inch of her New York upbringing coming out in her tone, “and instead of bringing me flowers, you come bearing armloads of _vegetables?”_

“Thought I’d make you a pie for dinner.” He put his purchases down carefully on the tiny two-person table that was crammed in beside the kitchen sink. “A little ‘ta’ for playing postlady all summer.”

Zinnia crossed her arms. Her biggest fans – and biggest tippers – at the nightclub were hoary old soldiers with decades of colonial service behind them, so she kept herself neatly hennaed at almost all times. The curving designs that started at her cuticles and disappeared beneath her short sleeves were just darker enough than her tawny skin to mesmerize the viewer. This combination let her cater to the men with Subcontinental proclivities as well as those with African ones. Catching Sid appreciating her latest artwork, she sauntered closer. “Well, _I_ think you owe me something more than a pie for that favor.”

“Yeah?” It might have been too hot for a smoke, but it was never too hot for what Zinnia was hinting at. “You have something particular in mind, did you?”

She was nearly a full foot shorter than him, unless you counted the wild bush of hair that she’d bleached the stark yellow-white of old bone, but she was strong. Even if he’d wanted to, Sid would have known better than to try and resist when she tugged him down into a soul-sucking kiss and then led him towards the oversized closet that she called a bedroom.

* * *

It was dark beyond the kitchen window when they emerged. “You’re still making me that pie, aren’t you?” Zinnia asked as she shrugged her way into a fresh dress. “I’ll be beat after tonight’s show. It’s a double.”

“Is the gas on?”

“It better be. I just paid the bill three days ago.”

Sid tested the hob and got a whiff of foul odor. “Yeah. I’m still making the pie.”

“Good. I want a break from curries and fries.” She drew in close, then turned her back to him. “Zip me up?”

“‘Fries,’” Sid chuckled as he closed her dress over the ochre-colored lines he’d spent the past several hours tracing with his fingertips and tongue.

“You laugh at that every time I say it.”

“Well, it’s funny.”

“No funnier than you suddenly knowing how to bake a pie.” She craned her neck to look backward and up at him. “You didn’t even bring any apples,” she teased.

“Afraid they’ll revoke your passport if you eat a pie with no apples in it, are you?”

“It’s un-American,” Zinnia said gravely. He kissed her, and then she went on. “...But they can have my passport. I’ll just stay right here with you and never go home. Hey!” she protested with a giggle as he began to bring her zipper back down. “Stop that!”

“Four _months,_ Zinny,” Sid protested. “Three times in as many hours doesn’t hardly start to make up for a drought like that.”

“I know, baby, but I have to go in a minute, and you have a pie to make. When I get home we’ll have dinner, then you can have me three more times for dessert, if you want. I’m off tomorrow, so I don’t have to worry about being able to dance for anyone but you.”

“...Alright. You win.” He pushed her gently away – there weren’t many places for her to go in the small flat, but he wouldn’t be able to get anything done if she was within arm’s reach – and settled down to work.

Zinnia had found the new pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket during their earlier rush to disrobe. Now she opened it and lit one, then leaned against the wall and watched him. “That woman who called here this morning, is she the one who taught you how to bake a pie?”

The chicken Sid had been about to place carefully into the hot butter slipped from his fingers and hit the pan with an ignoble _plop._ “Mrs. M. called here?!” He wheeled around. “Zin...you didn’t tell her...?”

“Of course I didn’t, you adorable knucklehead. I know you don’t want them knowing you’ve been in jail, same as you didn’t want them knowing the last time. Why do you think I went through all the effort of carrying their letters to you and mailing yours to them from here?”

He sent her a relieved and grateful grin. “‘Cause you love me?”

“Hmpf. I _something_ you,” she sassed back, returning his smile. “All that extra walking after long Saturday night shows, I guess love is probably what they’d call it in the movies.” A beat passed. “You’re lucky, you know.”

He did know, but before he could say so, Zinnia continued. “Bertie’s the one who picked up the phone earlier. Mr. Landis wasn’t in his office, but the door was open, so Bertie went in and grabbed it. I got to Bertie before he could dish out any dirt about you,” she soothed when Sid let out a hiss. “I was coming in, and I heard him say your name. It’s all right. I got hold of the phone, and I knew anyone calling for you was probably a religious type, so I played it innocent. I told her I was your next-door neighbor and that you were at work, but that I’d pass along any message she wanted me to.”

Sid practically collapsed into one of the kitchen chairs. “Zinny, you’re a lifesaver.” If Bertie had said much more than hello to Mrs. M., she would have been in London by sunset, and Sid was sure that he himself would have been dead by lecture about five minutes after that. Especially if she’d found him in bed with his ‘neighbor’ while raw chicken sat out in the hot kitchen.

“I don't mind living in a building where the only phone is in the manager’s office,” Zinnia remarked, “but I wish there was some way to keep Bertie the hell away from it.”

“Yeah. Bertie’s enough to make me wish there wasn’t a phone at all.” Somewhat recovered, Sid began to process the vegetables he’d bought. A lack of practice had dulled his speed and precision, so it was slow work at first, but the finesse came back into his motions as he went along. “Did she leave a message?” The knife paused. “It wasn’t an emergency, was it?” His presence being needed in Kembleford while he’d been behind bars had been one of his few real worries during each of his sentences, second only to the Father and Mrs. M. finding out where he was and what he’d done to get there.

“No. I think she was just feeling kind of lonely, and missing you. I guess you must have been missing her, too, because she said something about Tuesday being pie night. And here you are, making me a pie on a Tuesday when you’ve never made anything more complicated than a cocktail for me before.”

Had he really never cooked for her until now, even though they’d been together, off and on, for almost two years? Sid made a rueful face. “Sorry, Zin. I should’ve done this a long time ago.”

She had finished the cigarette. The empty beer bottle that was currently serving as the kitchen ashtray was balanced on the windowsill beyond Sid’s shoulder. Zinnia leaned over, dropped the end in, and then kissed him. “Siddie, you’re a man. Men don’t tend to think of things like cooking their woman a meal. Men think about things like what we did in the bedroom earlier instead. The fact that you’re making me something now is still miles ahead of anything my exes ever did.”

It was time for her to leave, so after another kiss she started for the door. Sid stood, turned away, and began adding the vegetables to the pan. Just as Zinnia started to say that she was going, a knock sounded.

For a moment Sid was certain that it was Mrs. M. standing on the other side. He’d studied the train timetables a great deal in the months leading up to his trip from Kembleford to London, and they remained stuck in his memory even though three years had passed without him needing them. Unless they’d changed, there were two Tuesday afternoon options that would have delivered the parish secretary to the city with plenty of time to have tracked him down by now. And as careful as Zinnia had been on the phone, all it would have taken was a whiff of trouble to get Mrs. M. on the move, especially if the Father hadn’t been close by to talk her down.

“Zinnia, gorgeous!” Oh, thank Christ, it was only Bertie. Sid looked around towards the door just as his snub-nosed and ginger former associate rose onto his toes and peeked over Zinnia’s shock of hair at him. “Oi! Sid! Man of the hour, what?” He raised both hands high enough to show off the bottles they held. “First drink as a free man’s on me.”

“It sure as hell ought to be,” said Zinnia as she swapped places with their downstairs neighbor. “Seeing as how it was _your_ plan that got him caught.” She poked Bertie in the chest with one finger. “You’d better not be here to try and drag him into another one of your hare-brained schemes. And,” she added, “you’d better not eat my part of the pie he’s making me, either. It’s special.” With that admonition she blew Sid a final kiss, gave Bertie one last hard look, and closed the door.

Bertie strode the few steps across the flat as if the space was his own. “Bit of an off thing to do as soon as you get home, innit?” he asked as Sid stirred the contents of the pan and put a battered old tin lid on at an angle. “Cooking a pie? Could just buy one down the street.”

“It’s Tuesday,” Sid answered, aware that he was being cryptic but not really caring.

“...Tuesday? What...aw, you’re still sore with me? It was four measly months! A baby could do four months sucking on the same lolly from start to finish!”

“It wouldn’t have been _any_ months if you hadn’t tripped over your own feet and knocked over that vase right as a copper was walking by the bloody picture window!”

“I know, I know! Look, I’m sorry, alright? It was an accident.”

“Oh, and tossing the bag of hot goods at me so you could get away quicker, was that an accident, too?”

“Heat of the moment! I panicked! You know how it is.”

“No, I don’t, Bertie, ‘cause I’ve only ever gotten chased when I was working with you!”

Bertie heaved a sigh of such weight that Sid probably could have heard it all the way back in the cell he’d vacated that afternoon. “I said I’m sorry, din’t I? And I _am._ I didn’t mean for you to get caught, this time or the other one. And to show you how sorry I am, I brought you one of my last two beers. I’d rather have them both myself, but I heard you was back, and I wanted to come and make amends. So...mates?”

Now it was Sid’s turn to sigh. Bertie was a clumsy oaf whose only real talent lay in fencing what other people had the skill to steal, and he had absolutely no capacity for real empathy, but he wasn’t a bad bloke. Besides, the bottles in his hands were beading, which meant they were cold. Sid had been burning up ever since he’d stepped out of the shadow of the prison, and the temperature in the flat wasn’t going to drop as the oven warmed. He wanted that beer. “...Mates,” he agreed.

“That’s the Sid I know,” Bertie exclaimed, clapping him hard on the shoulder. A second later he’d pried the cap off the first bottle and pressed it into Sid’s hand. “There, you drink that up, and we’ll talk.”

Sid drank slowly, savoring the cold liquid and waiting for the inevitable proposition. Once the other man had gone through the roster of their friends and acquaintances, catching him up on who was in jail, who was out, who’d gotten mixed up with thugs or drugs, and who was trying to get out of the trouble business all together, Bertie leaned forward over the table. “Hey,” he said in a low, conspiratorial voice. “There’s a big job tonight. Good money. I can get you in, no problem.”

There it was, the bait Sid had known was going to be dangled in front of him as soon as Bertie had turned up. “First off,” he replied, pushing Bertie backwards with one hand, “quit breathing on my pie crust. They’re hard enough to get right without you in the mix. Second, do I look stupid?”

“You’re rolling out a bleedin’ pie crust like you’re somebody’s mother, Sid. You really want me to say whether or not you look stupid just now?”

“Oh, piss off, Bertie.” They scowled at one another over the dough that took up most of the table. “Look,” Sid said finally, “no hard feelings about what happened before. I mean that. But no hard feelings doesn’t mean I’m gonna pretend it didn’t happen. So, we’re mates, yeah, but I’m not going in on any other jobs with you. Alright?”

“I get that, sure, but this isn’t one of my jobs! It’s one of Lukey Fitz’s gags!”

“...Lukey Fitz let you in on a scheme of his?” Fitz was practically a legend in their circle. He didn’t work often, but then he didn’t have to, because when he carried out a burglary he got away with enough to live comfortably for months.

“‘Course he did. I don’t _always_ trip over my own feet. And he wants you on this job, Sid. I heard him myself.” Bertie started to lean in again, then frowned slightly when Sid pushed him back once more. Still, he went on. “He said it was a shame you were locked up, and that it was gonna take three times as long to get into the safes with anyone else.”

“...‘Safes?’” asked Sid, emphasizing the plural.

“Safesssss,” Bertie drew out, nodding eagerly.

“The hell is he robbing?”

“No clue. He wouldn’t say. Just said to be at his come nine tonight.”

Seconds ticked away as Sid mused. Feeling the need to move, and with his nose telling him that the filling was ready to be spooned into the crust, he turned his back on the waiting Bertie and let his hands go through the familiar motions of pie-making while his mind whirled.

Lukey Fitz had never been so much as arrested for his crimes. He was the ultimate planner, and although occasionally someone he brought on a job with him was picked up and charged for it, that was usually due to their own stupidity. Not only would a Fitz job be relatively safe, it would be lucrative. Multiple safes, and Sid the one who got them to whatever was inside? It would mean more money than he’d ever dreamed of having all at once.

Enough, maybe, to take Zinnia out of this dump and move into somewhere a little nicer, a place where Bertie couldn’t pick up the phone if Mrs. M. happened to call unexpectedly. Enough to buy pie ingredients every night, if he wanted, without being skint afterward. Enough, even, that he might be able to make a visit back to Glos., to cook Tuesday dinner with Mrs. M., to have a couple thousand laughs with the Father, to ramble through all of his old haunts and inhale the scents of the countryside, to clear his nose and his head after this long summer spent surrounded by concrete and iron and the desperate, depressed sweat of two hundred other men.

He had crimped the top crust into place while these wild daydreams were running through his head. Now he slid the pie into Zinnia’s tiny oven. It barely fit, but he managed. He would manage this, too. Zinny wanted him to go straight – she'd said as much in bed earlier, had made him promise that he would try and get hired on somewhere legitimate and knock off the property crimes – but this was too good of an opportunity to be missed.

“Ow!” His right hand came into contact with the wall of the oven just as he was opening his mouth to tell Bertie that he was in. “Damn it!”

“See, that’s why I don’t cook,” Bertie remarked. “Too easy to get burned.”

Sid had never burned himself cooking a pie before. He’d nearly lopped off the end of his thumb when he was fifteen, too distracted by memories of how far Jenny Traeger had let him go when they’d met in the woods earlier that day to pay proper attention to his knife – he hadn’t dared admit what he’d been thinking about to Mrs. M. as she’d bandaged the injury, but he’d suspected that she had a decent idea anyway – but oven burns were a new experience. “Bloody hell, that hurts!”

Bertie joined him at the sink as he poured lukewarm water out of a jug and over the wound, trying to cool it. The mark was a good two inches long, and already starting to redden and rise as if it would blister. “You can still pick locks with that,” the redhead judged.

Sid flexed his hand experimentally. The burn was far enough below the joint of his thumb that its motion was only a little impinged, at least for now. He _could_ still lockpick with it. The problem was that he suddenly wasn’t sure he wanted to. It was as if the hot oven had lit his beautiful visions of Lukey Fitz’s job on fire and left them charred and curling on the floor between his feet. “...I dunno, Bertie. I’ll have to watch it for the next couple hours. I don’t want to go in on tonight if I’m gonna be a liability.”

“Sid, c’mon.” Bertie sounded like he was begging, but there was a hint of annoyance in his tone. “A slow pick by you’s still twice as fast as a fast pick by anyone else we know.”

Cor, but Bertie really was a pain in the arse sometimes. _This_ was his closest friend in London, besides Zinnia? Bertie hadn’t even come to see him while he was in jail, not once. Hadn’t written him a single line or sent a hello along with Zin, either. Sid shook his head. He’d felt greater commiseration from ducks he’d tossed old bread to on the pond back home.

“Look,” he said, “I’m not promising anything right now, alright? I’ve got a pie in the oven, I just burned my hand, I’ve only been out of prison all of five hours...so...just...maybe. Maybe I’ll come. I know where Fitz’s flat is. If I’m there, I’m there, and if I’m not, then best of luck.”

Bertie scoffed. “Time was you’d’ve jumped on this. Been on your knees thanking me for the chance to go on a Lukey Fitz job. Now what, you get a little burn while you’re baking your girl a pie – oh, right, a ‘special’ pie, she said – and you lose your nerve?”

Sid bristled. “I said maybe, Bertie, not no.”

“Yeah, right, fine. But remember this, Carter; you pass on a job like this one, there won’t be any ‘maybe’ about you ever being offered another one so good. It’ll just be no.”

Bertie stormed out of the flat on that note, muttering other things that Sid couldn’t quite hear. When the door had been slammed shut, Sid sighed. “What the hell kind of a welcome back was that s’posed to be?”

He tried not to think about any of it as he dug up an old but seemingly clean rag and wrapped it around his hand. There was no good way for him to secure it in place himself, but it was long enough that he could hold the ends together if he kept his fingers folded into his palm. He checked the time. 7:45; plenty of time to keep thinking, to decide what he wanted to do.

Next he started to pick up the things that were scattered all over the flat. Sid wasn’t the neatest person in the world by a long mile, but seven years of Mrs. M.’s constant nagging about the state of his room had managed to instill a minimum standard of tidiness in him. Zinnia had no such compunctions, and Sid’s long absence had left the small space cluttered. It was still fairly clean under everything, because neither of them could stand the bugs that were hard to keep away even with regular scrubbing, but there were random items – mostly clothes, and mostly Zinnia’s - everywhere.

He finished just as the pie was ready to come out. 8:30, and Fitz’s flat was only five minutes away. It was fine. Holding his breath with anticipation, Sid opened the oven door. The crust had looked and felt right when he’d made it, but it usually did. Where his crusts went wrong – and they always, always went wrong – was during the cooking process.

It seemed alright at first. The crimped edges were perfectly cooked, and the top wasn’t made of shattered, rock-hard chunks like it had been on more than one previous occasion. As he pulled the pie out, though, Sid realized that something altogether new had happened. The crust was intact, yes, but it had taken on a porridgy texture, and looked damp in the middle. Had he not mixed it right, or somehow mis-rolled it and caused an imbalance of wet ingredients? He’d been using an empty bottle as a rolling pin, after all, and that was far from ideal. But even that didn’t make sense, because he’d done exactly what Mrs. M. had shown him over and over again, just with slightly different tools...

Suddenly, Sid wanted the cigarette he’d been uninterested in earlier in the day. Abandoning the disappointing pie on the table, he stalked into the bedroom and flopped down on the ancient and uncomfortable mattress. Most of his few belongings that weren’t clothes were stacked up on the shelf that had been fixed precariously to the wall above his and Zinnia’s ratty pillows. Among them were two thick stacks of letters, one for each of his two regular correspondents. As he blew out his first puff of smoke, Sid reached up and pulled the stacks down. 8:35, and if he was going to go he’d have to get ready soon, but he could spare a minute or two for this.

He hadn’t gone back through the letters in a long time, not just because he’d been in prison and the letters had been here but because he hadn’t wanted to. He hadn’t even kept the first six months or so worth of notes he’d received after his arrival in London, a youthful folly for which he hated himself a little. Once he’d started hoarding them, though, it had felt strange to open them again. He always read them with interest when they arrived, and responded with what he felt was fairly respectable promptness, but the prospect of reviewing them weeks or months later made his stomach twist.

Tonight was different, somehow. Tonight he wanted to read the letters again, wanted to lose himself in the day-to-day happenings of the little village he’d been dropped into a decade earlier. Maybe it was just because Mrs. M. had called out of the blue like she had; maybe it was because the pie was all wrong again; maybe it was because of everything else that had already happened in this single strange day. Whatever was driving him, he was craving Kembleford, and these envelopes offered a fix.

He would have sworn that he’d only been smoking and reading for a few minutes when his eyes began to grow heavy. When he glanced at his watch, however, he found that it had gone ten. He’d been so absorbed in old news from home that he’d completely missed Lukey Fitz’s deadline.

Sid felt a vague twinge of regret – it really would have been a lot of money, and Bertie was probably right that his failure to show would bar him from equally valuable jobs for a long time to come – but it passed. He was mostly glad that he’d stayed behind. For the first time ever, he hadn’t struggled to find the emotions behind the words that had been written to him. The disassociation that he’d initially experienced with Father Brown’s letters from the war had never really gone away until tonight. Reading everything again now, though, he’d found himself visualizing each author as they wrote the letter in his hand. Their emotions passed over their faces as they penned their sentences, and finally, _finally,_ what they’d put down felt to Sid as if it had been spoken in his ear instead.

He was glad he’d stayed back for Zinnia’s sake, too. As much as Sid wanted to give her a better life, she would have been hurt if he’d run off on a burglary the same day he’d promised to stop doing them altogether. A steady job wasn’t his idea of a fun time, but the right one mightn’t be so awful. He was a decent driver; maybe a cab would suit him alright. Seeing the city, talking to people. There were plenty of garages around, as another option, and somebody somewhere would be willing to overlook his convictions. He’d ended up assigned to the prison auto shops during both of his sentences, so he could even lay claim to a bit of experience. Either one would make Zin happy, and a job working with cars would match what he’d been writing home for months now, besides.

Sid stubbed out the cigarette he was smoking, put the letters neatly back up on the shelf, and laid down. Sleep stole over him quickly. Dreaming of Kembleford and Zinnia, he smiled.

* * *

“...Sid. Baby. Wake up.”

He didn’t know how much time had passed, but he snapped awake immediately. There was a serious, almost fearful note in Zinnia’s tone that he’d never heard before. And she hadn’t called him simply ‘Sid’ since before the first time they’d slept together. He’d been her Siddie (a ridiculously babyish nickname, but one he secretly loved) for almost as long as they’d known each other. Something was wrong.

“Zin? What...you’ve been crying.” He sat up, reaching out to her. She came to him needily, curling up in his arms. “You alright?” Maybe he should have gone out and picked her up after her second show, walked her home. She’d come from work on her own a thousand times before, and had only been seriously harassed on a few occasions, but that didn’t mean something worse would never happen. “Somebody hurt you?” They’d better not have.

She shook her head against his chest. “When...when Bertie was here earlier,” she sniffled. “Before I left?”

Sid’s frown deepened. “...Yeah?”

“Did he try to get you to go on a break-in tonight? Something of Lukey Fitz’s? A big job?”

“...Yeeeeaaah?” He knew that Zinnia tried not to listen when things like marks and targets and fences came up. She’d never liked the way Sid contributed to their household finances, even when good scores of his had let them scrape through hard months. For her to know so many specific details of tonight’s offer was disconcerting. “But I didn’t go. That’s why I’m here.”

She pulled back enough to look up at him. Her heavy mascara was running down her cheeks, painting fresh trails over the ones that had already been there when she’d come into the room and woken him up. “So you kn-know already?” she hitched.

It was still a million degrees in the flat, but Sid shivered anyway. “Know what?”

Zinnia screwed her eyes shut. “The job...it was a set-up,” she managed. “Mr. Landis told me as I came in. The police had some sort _of...arrangement_ with Lukey Fitz, he said. They had enough evidence to nail him on a whole bunch of stuff, but they said they’d work with him if he brought in some others, a couple of really good nabs. That’s why Mr. Landis stopped me. When Bertie left the building earlier, he swung by the office to whine about how he’d gotten this terrific opportunity for you, and you were acting like you didn’t want it. Bertie didn’t say what the ‘terrific opportunity’ was, but when Mr. Landis heard about Fitz‘s whole crew being caught, he thought you might have been with them.”

“I...I wasn’t. I was...here. All night.” Had he been smoking and reading his letters when the net had closed around Bertie, and Lukey Fitz, and likely one or two other people he knew? Or had he already been asleep, safely wrapped up in old memories and hopes for the future? “I’m here, Zin.”

“I know,” she sobbed anew. “I know, and thank _God_ you didn’t go, because...” Her shoulders heaved. “...Because Bertie’s dead. He...he tried to run. He tried to run, and one of the officers had a gun – I didn’t even know the police over here ever _had_ guns, I thought that was just our thing – and he shot him. He shot him, and he’s _dead,_ Siddie, Bertie’s _dead,_ and all I could think when Mr. Landis told me that was that it could so easily have been _you...”_

Sid held Zinnia until she had cried herself into quietude. He couldn’t bring up any tears himself, couldn’t even really begin to fathom everything he had just heard. His sense of relief at having dodged a bullet had been huge even before he’d heard that actual bullets had been fired tonight. Knowing that Bertie was dead, and that as Zinnia had stated it could have been he himself, easily, so very easily, left Sid numb.

How, he wondered dazedly, would Zinnia have taken that news, if it _had_ been him? Jesus, how would she have relayed news like that back to Kembleford? In a fucking letter? Just as he’d been able to picture Mrs. M. and Father Brown writing to him when he’d been re-reading their notes, he now envisioned their faces as they absorbed the information in Zinny’s might-have-been missive. So much pain, so much pain and despair and disappointment...

Too much, too much everything, and now Sid had tears, now he was crying. Not for Bertie – well, maybe a bit for Bertie, because they’d still been friends despite everything, and because no one deserved to die like that, sudden and scared and set up – but for himself, and for Zinnia and the Father and Mrs. M., for everyone he could have or had or was still going to hurt with actions he’d already taken.

Zinnia’s hennaed hands rose to his face and wiped it dry, a half-dozen times, a dozen, until he’d let out enough of his sorrow that he was able to stop the waterworks. When their still-damp eyes met, she managed a weak smile. “My mama always said that the best cure for a hurting heart is a full belly. That pie you made smells pretty good...why don’t we go have some, now that the worst is over?”

“The crust is rubbish,” he confessed. “I can never get it right. That’s always...always Mrs. M.’s bit.” Was he ever going to get it right? Certainly not if he got himself shot on some idiotic break-in.

“That’s okay. We can still eat the filling. It’s my favorite part, anyway.”

After she’d tied a fresh rag securely over his burned hand - it was, in fact, blistering, but there was little to be done about it – she sat on his lap in one of their two chairs. One of her arms looped around his neck possessively while the other wielded her fork. Zinnia ate with a gusto that seemed almost indecent, especially compared to the way Sid merely picked at his side of the pie with uncharacteristic disinterest. “I’m a little bit mad at you,” she remarked between bites. “This is amazing. You could have been making me pies every Tuesday for almost two years now.”

“Just the fillings.”

“I told you, that’s my favorite part. The inside’s the most important part of anything; houses, pies, people...”

Sid played with the pile of gelatinous dough that he’d pulled off when they first sat down. “But what good’s a filling without a crust to hold it all together?” he mumbled.

“...What do you mean?”

“Houses without walls, people without bodies – souls, I guess, if those are even a thing – pies without crusts...they’re not...whole. They...well, look at it.” He poked his fork at the jumble of chicken and vegetables that should have been hidden under flaky golden pastry. “It’s all falling apart. You take a bite, and it goes everywhere. It’s a mess. What’re you supposed to do with just a filling?”

“Well,” Zinnia challenged, “what would you do with just a crust?”

Sid glanced at her. “...What do you mean?”

“What’s an ice cream cone without ice cream? What would that-” she, too, poked at the flaccid crust pile “-be if you’d baked it without the filling? Nobody wants to eat plain old bread or crust or cone. It’s the inside, the sandwich meat or the pie filling or the ice cream, that makes it good.”

“But then it’s not a sandwich, or a pie, or an ice cream cone,” Sid replied. “It’s just meat or filling or ice cream.”

“And what’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing, I guess. I just...like the combinations better. Crust _and_ filling.”

Zinnia was silent for a long, thoughtful moment. Then she nuzzled her face into his hair and let out a pensive hum. “Are we a good combination, Siddie?”

“...Yes,” he whispered. “You’re the only really good thing that’s ever happened to me in this city, Zin.”

“Mm...I like that,” she breathed against his ear. “But I’d like it better if you told me without words.”

It briefly struck Sid as odd that Zinnia was in the mood for sex after what had happened over the past couple hours. Then the wave caught him, too. Bertie was dead, yes, and it could have been him, yes, but it wasn’t. He was alive, alive with the most beautiful and vivacious creature he’d ever met, and what better way was there to celebrate that fact, to give thanks and show gratitude, then by taking her back to bed?

* * *

“...Feel better?” she asked later, as his watch ticked towards dawn.

“I dunno,” he answered honestly. She’d laid her head over his heart after they finished the second time, and her hair was tickling his chin. He held it down with his uninjured hand and ran his fingers over its tight, coarse waves as he stared towards the pitch-black ceiling. “I feel...empty.”

“I can’t make that claim,” Zinnia chuckled. He heard her scrabble for his cigarettes in the dark. The room flared to life briefly as she lit one, then died back into blankness. The smell of her first exhalation, all loamy tobacco and the sweetness of her breath, reached his nose. “...Sid?”

There it was again, that same serious tone, the use of his usual name instead of her pet one. “Hmm?”

“What...what do you want? Right now? Out of everything in the world?”

“Out of everything in the world? No limits?”

“No limits. Anything you want. The thing you want the most.”

His answer rolled up from a secret place deep within him, a place he had half-forgotten existed until tonight. “To go home.”

“...‘M sorry, Zinny,” he apologized a minute later. “I...I didn’t know.”

“I know,” she said simply.

“I didn’t mean-”

“It’s okay.” She took a deep, sad draw. “...It’s okay, baby. It’s right.”

“Is it?”

“You know it is.” She shifted away, then sat up. Her eyes were gentle in the faint glow that rose from between her lips. “I’ve been thinking about her all day, you know. Your lady who called.”

“Mrs. M.?” Sid rose onto one elbow and propped his head on his good hand. “Why?”

“Well...I wasn’t sure, to be honest. Not at first. But then tonight...and Bertie...” The dark mascara trails that she’d never wiped from her cheeks blurred as her mouth trembled around the cigarette. “She sounded nice, on the phone. Bossy, but my mama was like that, too. The sort of woman who bosses from a place of love. And I don’t know how I would have told her, Sid. If it _had_ been you...I don’t know how I could have said it to her. Because what I do know is that it would break her heart.”

The similarity between Zinnia’s words and his own earlier thoughts on the same topic made Sid feel as if someone had dropped an ice cube down his spine. He sat up all the way. “...Zinny...”

“You have to get out of this place,” she ruled. “I know you said no to that job tonight, and I appreciate that you kept your promise to me. But more offers are gonna come. I tried to keep out of it, to not listen when you and Bertie would talk, or when others would mention your name, but I heard. I know you’re good at what you do. Lots of people know it. If you stay here, sooner or later one of those people will make you an offer that you can’t refuse. And I don’t want to make that awful phone call if the worst happens. Not now, not ever. I _won’t_ make it.”

She seized his better hand with the one she wasn’t holding her cigarette in. “I would rather lose you to your little village in the sticks, to your Tuesday night pies – with crust _and_ filling – and to your Mrs. M. and Father Brown than to any of the things I might lose you to if you stay here. I love you, but you have to go. You know you have to go. You _want_ to go.”

There was no point in arguing with her. Even if she hadn’t been so certain of what she was saying, every word she spoke further solidified Sid’s own feelings. There was only one problem with her scheme. “Come with me,” he pleaded, squeezing her fingers.

She chuckled. “Somehow, I don’t think I’d fit in.”

“Nah, ‘course you would.” His argument held no merit, and he knew it, but he had to try. He had to try, because on any other night his answer to what he wanted most in the world wouldn’t have been Kembleford, but Zinnia. “It’d take a little while for some to adjust, but they would. It’s good people in Kembleford. I mean, they put up with me, and you’re great at that, so...you’ve already got a leg up.”

“That’s sweet of you, Siddie. But it’s also very silly.” The cigarette was dying. Zinnia finished it off, stretched over to deposit it in their one real ashtray, then leaned forward and gave Sid a wistful and lingering kiss. “Now, I’m going out for a walk. I’m leaving my tips from tonight on the table. When I get back, you and your things and that money had all better be gone and on their way to a much better place.”

“Zin, I can’t take your money.”

“You _will_ take it, because it’s a long way to where you're going and I don’t want you stealing to eat along the way. It’s bad enough that you’re going to have to walk and hitchhike to get there.”

“Now I _know_ you’d fit in in Kembleford.” He’d given up already, of course, but he couldn’t let their last moments together be bereft of the gentle teasing that marked his relationship with every person he truly loved. “You’re as bossy as Mrs. M. is.”

She was invisible in the windowless room, but he knew she was aiming an affectionate smile in his direction. “Place of love, baby,” she whispered. Her fingers slipped from his grasp as she pulled away. “...Place of love.”

There was rustling out in the main room of the flat as she dressed and left the night’s earnings on the kitchen table. Then the door shut behind her, and Sid was alone. “...Zinny...”

He’d said he felt empty before, but that was nothing compared to this. It amazed him that every step he took as he moved around packing his few possessions didn’t cause a booming internal echo to shake his bones. He moved quickly, wanting to get it done and over with. Coming across the St. Christopher medallion that Father Brown had pressed into his hand wordlessly just before he’d boarded his train three years earlier was enough to make him pause, though.

He’d worn it on the journey to London, and for a short while afterward, not because he believed it was doing him any favors but because it was a gift from the Father. On the night of his first robbery, however, he’d taken it off. It hadn’t felt right to have it on while he was preparing to break a Commandment. Afterward he’d left it tucked safely away in his bag, where it couldn’t remind him of the disappointment his way of life would cause the priest to feel.

Now, though...now was different. After everything that had happened tonight, he thought as the pendant flashed in the light, it wouldn’t be quite so hypocritical to put it on. Besides, he was about to head out on a long trip. No one on either end would know exactly where he was until it was over. It couldn’t hurt to wear it. And when he got home, the Father would be pleased to see it around his neck. Sid dropped the chain over his head, then went on packing.

When he was done, he bit his lip and approached the kitchen. Zinnia hadn’t made much in tips tonight – Tuesday was always a slow shift, even for the girls on doubles – but it would be enough to keep him from starving or stealing as he traveled from her table to Mrs. M.’s. There was a note, too, written hurriedly in her rough schoolgirl script. “There are three kinds of people in this world,” Sid read out loud quietly. “Pans (that’s me), fillings (you, and a damn good one), and crusts. You’ll find that perfect crust someday, Siddie, and when you do, it’s going to be beautiful. XOXO forever, your Zinnia.”

Her handwriting wavered as his eyes filled with new tears. “Bloody fucking hell,” he choked out. What was he doing? Why, how, could he leave her? But he was doing it, was folding her note into careful quarters and putting it into his pocket, was tucking away the money she’d insisted he take, was opening the door, stepping out into the hall, turning away from the flat one last time. Then down the stairs, all four flights of them, past Mr. Landis’ darkened office, and out into the street.

It had cooled drastically since the afternoon. The air felt good on his skin as he retraced the path he‘d taken little more than twelve hours earlier. It would be wonderful to be away from the city, to breathe in truly fresh air again, to see greens and yellows and browns that hadn’t been planted out in plans. His pace increased as he chased after memories of open fields, fruit-heavy orchards, and sun-dappled glades. When he passed the prison he’d spent the last four months in, Sid didn‘t even glance through its gates. His destination was beyond, in the open trainyards that he’d been able to hear from his hard bed behind the walls when the nights were as quiet as this one.

He and the other Kembleford lads had often jumped slow-moving freight trains on dares. If he walked the tracks for a little while, until he was past the point on the line where the crew would be looking for anyone who might have snuck on at the depot, he could catch a free lift. It would be dead reckoning, and he’d still have to walk a fair distance in his painful new shoes before all was said and done, but with luck he’d be at his destination well before next Tuesday rolled around.

Sunday, he decided as a soft mist rose from the ground and began to soften the edges of the world, would be ideal. The looks on their faces when they came into the presbytery kitchen after Mass and found him sitting at the table...yeah. Sunday. If he had to ride and walk around the clock for the next four days, he’d make Sunday happen.

And in the meantime, he’d have the sky, the grass, the trees, and Zinnia’s love to keep him company. He was carrying little else home with him after three years in the city, but his newfound appreciation of those things, and of the people he was going back to, was more than enough.


	4. May 1952

Mrs. M. looked up from the parish calendar as Sid came into the kitchen. “Oh, good,” she said approvingly when she saw who it was. “I was afraid that _she_ was going to make you miss yet _another_ Tuesday evening in order to drive her to some tea or ball or hunt or...something.”

“Don’t think they do those this close to sunset, Mrs. M.,” Sid jested. “Hunts. The fox’d have too much of an advantage.”

“Well, I would not put it past this new Countess of ours to try. Some of the strange ideas she has already brought up in Women’s Institute meetings...”

He bit the inside of his cheek and tried to hold in his snicker. Countess Montague had only taken up residence at her husband’s family seat a few months before, and Mrs. M. would already be perfectly happy to see her go away again. Her departure would leave Sid without the steady employment that the parish secretary had been so excited for him to get, but he could live well enough on the odd jobs and short contracts that had sustained him since his return from London. After all, those plus the occasional bit of contraband running – not that he’d ever confirmed that side hustle to Mrs. M., who would have been mortified that her old fear had come true – had sufficed to purchase his caravan at the start of the year. And what more did he need, honestly?

The only real drawback to Lady F. leaving would be that Sid rather liked her. She was a lot more fun than he’d ever imagined someone with a title could be. That, he suspected, was part of the reason why Mrs. M. wasn’t her biggest fan.

“No need to fuss,” he assured as he set a small burlap bag in the sink. “Her Ladyship’s done most of her ‘hello, I’m here’ rounds now. I was off all day today, and I’m not on again until tomorrow afternoon.”

She frowned across the kitchen at him. “Then why were you not here for lunch? And you missed tea, as well.” Her eyes rose to the clock on the wall. “...Well, you still have time for something light before dinner,” she said as she stood up from her seat. “There is no way to cook a proper anything in a caravan, so you must be hungry.”

“I’m fine, Mrs. M.,” he promised, stopping her. “I was building nest boxes up to Murphy’s all morning.”

“Did Clara feed you along with her boys, then?” The chicken-farming Murphys had five sons, all within a few years of Sid’s age.

“’Course. And she gave me that,” he nodded down into the sink. “Whole fryer, cleaned and plucked. Said to pass on her hello to you along with it.”

The parish secretary peeked into the sack and gave a satisfied hum. “We should save this,” she ruled. “It will make a fine Saturday dinner. I see no point in cooking a whole chicken tonight just to put parts of it in a pie and hold the rest over.” Her eyes narrowed. “They did actually pay you, too, I hope.”

“I wouldn’t have done it otherwise.” He’d tried to avoid going near live chickens ever since the Widow Bentley’s rooster had opened his ankle up with a nasty peck six months earlier. Chickens were delicious, but they were also mean. “Well...as a favor, maybe.” He’d gone to school with the eldest two Murphy lads, after all, and still had a drink with Charlie Jr. from time to time. “But yeah, they paid me.”

“Good.” She made a face, and then looked Sid up and down. “...I can tell you were in chicken coops all morning, now that I stand close to you.”

“Really?” Sid bent his head and sniffed at himself. After breathing fresh air on his walk back into the village and then standing still for a minute, he was able to catch a whiff of the odor he’d been working in all day, too. “You’re right. I’ll go clean up.”

"Fortunately, you still have things here to change into,” Mrs. M. remarked. “I will never understand why you think it is a good idea to move everything you own into that caravan. You have nowhere to bathe up there, so it would make more sense to leave the bulk of your clothing here. Besides, the more you take away the more you will have to bring back when winter comes.”

It was true that he was relying on the presbytery for showering purposes, and probably would do for some time to come, but Sid didn’t understand the logic behind the second comment. “Why would I be moving a bunch of stuff back for winter? The caravan’s a lot closer to work than here is. And I fixed up that old space heater Mr. Jones left behind. Be warm enough up there most days.”

“The _days_ are not my concern. You will freeze after you turn the heater off and go to bed.”

“So I won’t turn it off,” he shrugged. “It’ll cost me more in fuel, but I can afford it now.”

The parish secretary paled, then flushed. “You cannot – you _will_ not – go to sleep with a kerosene heater running in an enclosed space! Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I think those may have been the most foolish words I have ever heard come out of your mouth.”

“People do it all the time, Mrs. M.”

“People _die_ doing it all the time, Sidney!”

“They don’t die ‘all the time.’ It’s, like, two a year.” He hadn’t actually looked it up or anything, but how bad could it be if the heaters were still on the market?

“However many it is per year, I will not have you being one of them! The fumes, the risk of fire – and in such a small space, you would have no chance of getting out – the _fumes...”_ She gripped his arm. “Promise me that you will not fall asleep with that heater, or any other like it, running.”

Mrs. M. had had few good things to say about the caravan from the first moment she’d heard that Sid had bought it off Colin Jones. Jones was a tottering old drunk who’d been around the world on cargo ships twice before Father Brown was even born. He’d settled in Kembleford when his seafaring days came to an end, but as his life began to do the same thing he felt an ache for the familiar sound of surf. Having taken a shine to Sid, who wasn’t averse to buying a round down the pub in exchange for a rousing story or two, he’d given him a bargain price on not only the caravan he called home but the meadow in which it sat.

“All I want is enough to get back to the waves, lad,” he’d said. “I don’t much care about after that, but I can’t die here, with no salt in my last breath. The tin can’s not too old; it’ll stand you well. And the land’s not worth much – won that at cards, only reason I came this far inland at all – but it’s land, and they don’t make more of that.” Sid had agreed, and although he’d paid Jones a fair bit more than what a ticket to the coast went for, because the man had to eat, and more importantly, drink, once he got there, he knew he’d gotten a steal.

But he hadn’t known how much his deal worried Mrs. M. until now. “...You really hate it, don’t you?” he asked, studying her face. “The caravan.”

“Yes,” she said simply. “I do.”

“But _why?”_ It didn’t leak, it had a decent lock on the door, and it had cleaned up alright inside. Yeah, he had to go into the woods to take a piss, but so what? It’s not like he was asking Mrs. M. to do the same.

“Because you are all by yourself, without the basic facilities of civilization, without any way to get help quickly if you need it...and the forest might be a little safer now than it used to be, but there are still plenty of dangerous things going on, things that you do not need to be anywhere near. Besides, there is just no _reason_ for you to be out there at any time of the year, let alone in the winter, even if it is closer to Montague House. Not when you have a perfectly good and safe bed right here.”

She drew a deep, watery breath, and seemed to steady herself somewhat. “However,” she allowed, “Father Brown, as much as he likes you being under this roof, believes that having a place of your own is good for you. And I agree with him that it is certainly better than you going off to London again, or to some other place like it.

“But even London, even _China,_ would be preferable to you accidentally killing yourself barely a mile from home. So keep your caravan, if you must, but under no circumstances are you to fall asleep with a heater running inside of it.” Her fingernails were cut short and neat like always, but Sid felt them dig into his skin as she tightened her grip even further. “Do you understand?”

“Yes,” he agreed quickly. “...Yeah. I won’t. I’ll...I’ll come back down here when it's cold.” It would double his commute time, but at least he’d know that the parish secretary wasn't fixing herself up for apoplexy. “Or I’ll figure out some other way to keep warm up there that won’t give you half a heart attack. Alright?”

“You promise me, Sidney.”

Jesus, she wasn’t just worried, she was frightened. “I promise,” he swore. “I won’t sleep with it on. Honest.” He wouldn’t get any sleep if he tried it now, anyway. All he’d be able to see behind his eyelids would be the distress of the woman before him.

“You had just better not.” She released him finally and turned her back to him. Sid watched as she withdrew her handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. “Now, you go and get cleaned up so that we can start dinner.”

“Sure. But...” He frowned. Mrs. M. was a notorious fretter, but she didn’t usually fly quite so far off the handle as she just had. Not without a good reason, at least, and a good reason for Mrs. M. was often based on personal experience or wisdom gleaned through gossip. But he couldn’t recall anyone having a problem with a space heater around here. Besides, he’d given her the promise she’d wanted. So why was she crying?

“We are going to be late with the pie if you keep lingering.”

She sounded strained. Shaking his head, Sid stepped around to see her face again. “...What’s it really, Mrs. M.?”

She tried to scowl at his invasion of her emotional moment, but the look was shaky, and it collapsed almost immediately. “I had a cousin,” she explained slowly. “Kieran. He was about your age, and he had a little shack not far from us when I was a girl. We got on well – he was more like a brother than a cousin, to tell the truth – and I would always stop in to wake him on my way to school in the mornings. He was terrible about mornings, and he would hardly ever be up before lunch if I skipped him over.”

Her voice thickened, and she would no longer meet his gaze. “He used a kerosene space heater like yours in the winters. We all thought they were perfectly safe. And then one morning I...I went to wake him up...and it had been cold the night before...and he just _would not_ wake, no matter what I did...”

She couldn’t say anything more after that, but she didn’t need to. There was no resistance when Sid pulled her into an embrace. Once she’d quieted, he broke the silence. “...I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about. You had no way of knowing.” She straightened up, dried her face one more time, and then tucked her handkerchief back where it belonged. “Anyway, you have promised not to do what Kieran did, and that is what matters.”

“Yeah.” His throat was tight from watching the bulwark of a woman before him break down. Hating it, he sought to lighten the mood. “But I’m still sorry. And I’m sorry that now you probably smell like a chicken coop, too.”

To his grateful surprise, she laughed. “Well, there are worse things I could smell of. And it will be less noticeable on me than it is on you. So, you go and wash, and I will get your vegetables rinsed and ready to make up time.”

“Alright.” He gave her a grin, and was pleased when the last bit of remembered pain left her face. “Be right back.”

* * *

She had opened the window by the time he returned. “...Now I can smell it for sure, even with the airing out. Not on you,” he added swiftly as he drew up beside her at the cooktop. “Just in general. It’s better, though.” He pointed his chin towards the pan in which she had already dropped a large pat of butter. “You starting the chicken?”

“We are running quite late. The Father will be in from the church in less than an hour.”

“Then I’ll-” He cut off as a ring sounded. “...Answer the phone, I guess.”

“Oh, _good,”_ an enthusiastic voice hit his ear after he said hello. “I had no idea where I was going to call if you hadn’t been at the presbytery. The police station, I suppose,” came a joke, “but it wouldn’t do me much good if you were able to be reached _there_ after a night off.”

Sid’s chuckle was weak, not because he minded the teasing – he hadn’t known Lady F. long, but as far as he was concerned she’d already earned the right to poke a bit of fun at him – but because this couldn’t be good. “Ah...yeah. I’m here. At the presbytery.” He winced as he asked the natural question. “D’you need to go somewhere, or...?”

“Well, I was just asked to dine with Lady Frobisher this evening. The last-minute invitation means that she’s only asked me because someone she preferred cancelled on her, and I have a suspicion that she’s going to be a terrible bore as a hostess, but I really ought to go.” The Countess’ tone turned contrite. “I know I gave you today off, Sid, but if there’s any way you could drive me, I would count it as a favor.”

“And when...when would you need to leave?” A late dinner party might be workable. He’d have to eat fast to be able to stop by the caravan for his uniform and make it out to the House in time, but he and Mrs. M. would at least be able to do their cooking together.

“Lady Frobisher believes in an extended cocktail hour – it's the only exciting thing about her personality I’ve yet discovered, but I’m sure I can trust you to keep that to yourself – so the sooner the better.”

So much for his idea. Sid was torn. He wanted to stay here and enjoy the leisurely evening off with Mrs. M. and the Father that he’d been planning on. It had been over a month since he’d been ‘round for pie night, and he’d missed the tradition. But he also liked Lady F. and knew that she had been trying for weeks to integrate herself into the local nob circles. An invitation, even to a short-notice and likely boring dinner, was a victory for her. “Let me...ah...just give me one – gaaaah!”

He’d been turning to see if Mrs. M. had heard any of the conversation thus far. If she hadn’t, he could put the phone down for a minute and let himself think. She clearly _had_ overheard, however, because she was standing at his elbow with one hand held out imperiously and thunderclouds on her brow.

“...Sid?” Lady F.’s concerned and slightly puzzled voice came over the line. “Did something happen?”

Sid gulped. The Countess had no idea what she was in for, and since he’d handed the receiver over automatically there was no good way for him to warn her.

“...Lady Felicia? This is Bridgette McCarthy.” Oh, no, it never ended well when she announced her full name. “Yes, I am aware that you were speaking with Sidney- ...what? Yes, of _course_ he is all right. I merely startled him. Now...” She drew herself up as if her adversary was standing in front of her instead of sitting in a plush drawing room two miles away. “...You have called to ask him to come to work this evening, have you not?”

Sid cringed. Mrs. M.’s question had been perfectly civil, but a deaf man could have heard that she was livid.

He couldn’t make out Lady F.’s response, but it was short in length. “Well, I am sorry, but he is not available. He was given the night off, and he has plans here.” A pause. “No, they cannot be rescheduled!” Another beat, Mrs. M.’s nostrils flaring as she listened. “I understand that this dinner is important to you, Lady Felicia, and I wish you the best of luck in making it there in a timely manner. However, Tuesday happens to be pie night, which is important to _us,_ and Sidney has missed several in a row because you have had places to be. So, as I said before, he is _not available_.” A final moment of near-silence. “...I will be sure to pass along the message. Goodbye.”

“So how fired am I?” Sid asked as soon as the phone was back in its cradle.

“Not at all,” said Mrs. M. briskly. “Her Ladyship would like you to be ready for her at three tomorrow.” Her eyes flashed. “And if she so much as _thinks_ of firing you when she is the one who tried to interrupt yet another Tuesday dinner-”

“I won’t be telling you about it without finding cover first,” Sid broke in, “because that was bleedin’ scary. Sorry,” he added when his language drew a look, “but it was.”

“I am sure that I said nothing to cause fear,” stated the parish secretary. “You are my witness to the fact that every word I spoke was polite and correct.”

“Well...yeah...but...”

She arched an eyebrow. “But what?”

“But it sounded like you were gonna put _her_ in a pie if she didn’t shut up and let us get back to cooking the one we’d planned on.”

“Oh, nonsense, Sidney.” A rare smirk dashed across her lips. “Chicken will be far more palatable.” Ignoring the disbelieving giggle that this remark drew, she shooed him back towards their work. “Hurry, now, the meat will be done soon. You know better than to let any drippings go to waste with overheating.”

He did know, and he moved through his vegetables at speed. After the pie was in the oven, Mrs. M. watched him make about the thousandth practice crust of his life. He’d tried doing the crust for their last joint effort, and it had once again come out all wrong. “I see nothing incorrect in what you are doing,” she puzzled when he was done with this latest attempt, “as was the case last time. And I know it was cooked as it should have been then, too, because I was here and watching.”

Sid sighed. “I’m about ready to just give up on crusts and be the fillings bloke forever. I mean, if _you_ don’t even see anything I’m doing wrong, what’s the point in wasting the ingredients over and over again?”

“No,” she said firmly. “You will turn out a proper crust one of these days. I may not be able to see what it is that is missing from your method, but that does not mean that you will never find out. When we have more time than we did this afternoon, you can try baking the pie with your crust again. It will come out right sooner or later.” Her gaze rose to the clock. “As for today’s pie, it is high time that it came out of the oven. And _where_ is the Father? He is never out after five on a Tuesday, at least not when you are here to help cook.”

Sid had been about to start sweeping loose flour off the table and into his hand. “I’ll walk over and see, if you want,” he offered. Mrs. M.’s pie crusts were phenomenal, but he hated cleaning up from them.

“Well...we can give him a minute or two more. He was struggling with his new homily earlier and went next door for a little inspiration. Perhaps he found some and is caught up in writing it down.”

The pie was cooling to an edible temperature on the counter and Sid was setting the last utensil down on a fresh tablecloth when the door opened. Looking up, he met Father Brown’s smile with one of his own. There was something besides a greeting in the older man’s mien, he saw immediately, some sort of mischief. Sid felt a quiver of uneasiness run through his stomach. He was always game for the Father’s larks, but this pie night had already gotten off to a strange start. What other oddity was about to be added to it?

He got his answer a second later, when Lady F. emerged from behind the priest. “Hello,” she greeted cheerily. “...Oh, my, it _does_ smell delicious in here.” It really did, now that the pie had covered up the lingering aroma of chicken coop.

“It always does,” said Father Brown. “Lady Felicia has expressed an interest in our pie nights,” he explained to the staring Sid and Mrs. M.

“I’m sorry to barge in,” Lady F. apologized without actually sounding sorry at all. “But you were so passionate about Tuesday dinners on the phone, Mrs. McCarthy, that I knew they must be something special. Since I had to drive through the village anyway on my way to Lady Frobisher’s, I stopped in at the church to see if the Father would let me in on the secret.” Her sparkling gaze left the parish secretary and landed on Sid. “Imagine my surprise when he told me that you’re a genius with pie fillings,” she teased. “You never even told me you could so much as hard-boil an egg.”

Sid shrugged. “It never really came up.” The Countess had caught him off-guard several times with the topics she was willing to broach, but his culinary capabilities hadn’t been one of them.

“Well, I can’t wait to try your creation.”

Mrs. M. let out a huff so quiet that only Sid, standing beside her, caught it. “I thought I heard you say that you are on your way to Lady Frobisher’s?” she asked, mannerly but aloof. “With the rush you seemed to be in earlier, I am surprised you had a moment to stop in.”

“I wouldn’t have if I’d asked Warbelow to drive me in lieu of Sid. Warbelow is a fine butler, but I don’t think he knows that cars can go faster than twenty nowadays. I decided to bring myself down in the sportscar so that I could make up time on the way if I had to.”

“I see. Well, perhaps you ought not get yourself into a position of needing to make up too much of it. Our policemen are always on the lookout for speeding.”

“I know. Sid warned me as soon as he saw my car.” The appreciative glance she’d sent him as she spoke those words grew into a beaming smile of triumph as she went on to counter Mrs. M.’s attempt to hurry her back out the door. “But since Father Brown was kind enough to invite me to join you for dinner, I have all the time in the world, and no need to speed anywhere this evening.”

The parish secretary’s rictus of joy at this news was so brittle that a hard blink might have made her face shatter. “...Yes, that was _very_ kind of the Father.”

Sid sent Father Brown an uncertain glance as they pulled out the pieces for a fourth place setting. Lady F. had settled into the chair that none of them habitually used, which put her directly across from the glowering Mrs. M. The Countess wore a bright expression, refusing to let the other woman’s annoyance taint her enjoyment of the invitation she’d accepted. “...Are you sure this is a good idea?” he breathed as the air behind them crackled.

“Not at all,” Father Brown whispered back. “But I like Lady Felicia a great deal, and I know you do, too. Our lives will be much more harmonious if we can interact with her socially without drawing Mrs. McCarthy’s ire.” He purposefully dropped a fork then, buying them a few extra seconds. “Giving Lady Felicia an opportunity to compliment the pie – and, perhaps more importantly, its makers – seemed like an ideal way to start softening things between them.”

Sid had often marveled at the Father’s knack for making people cooperate. He himself could strike up a friendship with just about anyone, and fast, but it was something else to be able to manipulate a situation so that others not only found common ground but thought they’d gotten to it themselves. “That’s brilliant,” he admired.

“We’ll see. It might not be. But thank you for the compliment, regardless.”

In short order, the pie was dished out and first bites were taken. Sid smiled, pleased with the result. He’d added an extra half a mushroom on a whim, and it had balanced the carrots, which were slightly more acidic than usual, perfectly.

“...Sid,” Lady F. sighed after her own initial taste, “why are you driving my car when you should so obviously be running my kitchen?”

“‘Cause pie filling’s the only thing I can make half-decent,” he replied, laughing. “And I can only do them because Mrs. M. made me cook them every Tuesday for years.”

“I did not _make_ you,” Mrs. M. rebutted. “...Not after the first week, at least.”

“Yeah, fair enough. I like making them. But that really is all I can cook, besides a bit of a fry-up. I can’t even get the crust right to make a whole pie.”

“You will get it right someday. Of that I have no doubt.” Mrs. M. stated this so fiercely that a new arrival might have thought Lady F. had just predicted Sid’s eternal pastry failure. “And as for the fillings,” she went on proudly, “I could never have taught him how to make them as well as he does. My crust may be perfect, but the whole pie is hardly half as good when I do the inside as well.”

“The crust _is_ perfect,” Lady F. congratulated. “Lord Bucknell used to have a chef who left the Ritz to work for him. He _raved_ about the pies this man made for months. Finally, someone said that if the pies were so good then he should theme a luncheon around them and invite all the people whom he’d been boring to tears with his repetitive descriptions.” She took another bite, closed her eyes blissfully as she chewed, and then swallowed. “I’m convinced that none of those pies could even begin to compare itself to this one. I don’t know how you made it so flaky. It’s more like a croissant than a pie crust.”

Sid, seeing an opening, took advantage of it. “I told you Mrs. M.’s baking was legendary. Just wait ‘til summer, when she’s got fresh strawberries to make scones with.”

“You aren’t the only person I’ve heard about Mrs. McCarthy’s strawberry scones from. If they are anywhere close to as good as this pie is, I’m not surprised that they’re award-winning.”

“I am always impressed by the excellent show put on by the judges at any event Mrs. McCarthy enters,” Father Brown contributed. “Watching them, you really believe that they might consider awarding first place to someone else. But I suppose that’s only fair to the other contestants. We wouldn’t want them to feel discouraged before the results are even announced.”

“They’re either new around here or have skin thicker’n an elephant’s, if they’re even bothering to try and compete with Mrs. M.,” added Sid.

The parish secretary’s pride had been so thoroughly flattered by all of this (admittedly deserved, in Sid’s opinion) praise that she was now groping for some way to express a bit of humility. “Well, I can only take so much credit for the results of an inherited recipe,” she blustered. “And I do wish I had had a bit more time with the pie crust this evening; they can come out even flakier,” she informed the Countess, “when I am able to give them my full and proper attention.”

“I can’t imagine how you achieve that, Mrs. McCarthy, but after everything I’ve heard and now tasted for myself, I’m sure you manage it regularly.”

Sid felt a grin flash across his face. He’d already gathered that Lady F. was a quick study in social situations, but she’d still pegged Mrs. M. in near-record time. His delight slackened, however, when he glanced over at the Father to share the moment and saw a curious glint in his eye. “Did some sort of excitement come up while I was out?” the priest inquired. “Or did your work at the Murphys’ run late, Sid?”

He didn’t know how to respond. He sure as hell wasn’t going to blurt out that Mrs. M. had been driven to tears by memories of her long-dead cousin. Before the silence grew telling, however, the parish secretary saved him. “There was no excitement. We were discussing Sidney’s winter living arrangements, and the time got away from us.”

Father Brown’s interest visibly deepened. “Oh?”

“Yes. He has finally seen sense and agreed to stay here on nights when the temperature is supposed to fall below forty degrees.”

“We never-” Sid began to object that they hadn’t actually set a temperature limit, but he cut himself off quickly. Forty _would_ be pretty chilly to wake up to, and he didn’t want to risk upsetting the fragile calm that had finally settled over the table. “...Yeah,” he gave in. “That’s what we agreed.”

“That sounds very reasonable,” nodded the Father, pleased. “And I certainly won’t object to the company.”

“Well, who would?” quipped Lady F. “But Sid, I thought your land was between here and the House?”

“Yeah. About halfway.”

“And you don’t have a car.”

“Nah. Spent the money I was gonna put towards that on the caravan.”

“So how will you get back and forth?”

“Same way I do now,” he shrugged. “Walk.”

“In the cold?” pressed the Countess, her face concerned. “And the dark? There will be late parties and balls several nights a week during the Season, Sid, even out here in the country.”

“Roads are quiet at night. And it’s not that far. Only a couple miles.”

“It _is_ less than ideal, though,” Father Brown acknowledged. “I agree with Lady Felicia on that.”

“As do I,” said Mrs. M. “But it is far better than the alternative of him sleeping in that freezing caravan. Which,” she pointed out, “he would still have to walk in the dark to get to. He may have to walk further this way, but at least the bed at the end is warm, and there will be someone here to know if he does not make it safely in.”

“No.”

Sid had never heard Lady F. use her peeress-of-the-realm voice before, but he recognized it for what it was at once. So did the Father, whose intrigued look was tinged with caution, and Mrs. M., whose countenance blended startlement and rising protest at being dictated to in what was as good as her own home.

But Lady F. wasn’t finished. “It’s one thing for the staff who live on the estate farms to go home every evening. Monty’s family has been drawing household help from them for so many generations that there are decent paths through the woods and fields to almost every one of them, and they’re nowhere near two miles from the kitchen door. But I can’t let you walk that far year-round, in the cold and the rain, on dark roads...” She shook her head. “No.”

A long, silent moment passed. “So...” Sid finally broached it, “what, then? I mean, I really don’t mind, Lady F. I’ve been cold before, plenty of times. Wet, too. They both go away after a bit.” He froze, save for his eyes widening in mild fear, as appalled and peremptory stares were turned on him by both women. “Uh...that is...”

“I think what Sid meant to say,” Father Brown stepped in, his voice amused, “is that he made his agreement with Mrs. McCarthy in full knowledge of what it might mean for his getting back and forth to work.”

“Oh, so you did _not_ mean to sound as if you would take hypothermia lightly?” accused Mrs. M.

“Ah, nope. Definitely not.” He hadn’t been thinking about hypothermia whatsoever, just about not inconveniencing or worrying any of the others. “Not...not what I was getting at at all. The Father’s got it right, though.”

“Well, we need to find a way for you to stay closer to the House regardless,” said Lady F. Her attitude relaxed much more rapidly than that of Mrs. M., who continued watching Sid as if she thought he might run off and try to freeze to death at any moment. Upon hearing the Countess’ statement, however, the parish secretary’s attention zoomed back over to her.

“Surely you are not suggesting that he live out there full time? We will hardly see him!”

“It’s still only two miles, Mrs. M.,” Sid soothed. “‘S not like I’d be back in London. You’d see me. Anyway, it’s not necessary. I’ll be fine walking.”

“Of course you’ll still see him,” added Lady F. “He doesn’t have to stay at the House all the time. I was only thinking that it would be good for him to have space there so that he doesn’t have to walk anywhere at all if it’s late or if the weather is inclement.

“And,” she rebutted Sid’s comment, “it _is_ necessary, for my comfort if not for your own. If only my predecessor hadn’t turned half of the downstairs quarters into storage... Monty’s parents didn’t spend much more time out here than he does, so they kept very few permanent staff. Everywhere I could put you without causing a scandal is full...”

Mrs. McCarthy was deep in thought. “Marjorie Corman is one of your maids, is she not?”

“Why yes, she is. She stays at the House. I believe her family is some distance away. Hartwell, or someplace like that. Is that a place around here?”

“Yeah,” Sid confirmed. “’Bout ten miles south.”

“Hartwell,” mused Father Brown. “They field a decent cricket team most years, if I recall correctly.”

“Do they?” asked Lady F. “How do they compare to Kembleford?”

“We hold our own more often than not. Although I don’t think we’ve ever actually played Hartwell, now that I think about it.”

“There’s a hill between here and there,” Sid remarked. “Pretty biggish one. That’s probably why.”

The Countess blinked hard. “You...determine who you play based on how large the hills are?”

“Old boundaries, Lady Felicia,” explained the Father. “Villages like Kembleford and Hartwell have been inhabited since a ‘pretty biggish’ hill would have been an obstacle to trade and travel. We may have cars and trains now, but it takes more than a few decades to undo centuries of habit and tradition.”

“However large of a hill stands between here and Hartwell,” Mrs. M. broke back into the conversation, “the point is that Marjorie Corman currently has one of your staff rooms, Lady Felicia.”

“Well _yes,_ Mrs. McCarthy, she does, but I certainly can’t ask her to go ten miles over a large hill twice a day when I won’t even abide Sid walking a relatively flat two.”

Sid did not expect a positive reaction to that observation. However, Mrs. M. looked pleased with herself. “Marjorie Corman,” she announced, “has just become engaged to Joseph Mills. Mrs. Mills stopped by this afternoon to discuss an end-of-summer wedding. You had already left for the church, Father, and I did not want to disturb you while you were trying to concentrate, so we worked out a few of the basic things on our own. She said she will come by again tomorrow to speak with you directly.

“Judith Mills,” the parish secretary informed the Countess, “is _not_ the kind of woman who will stand her daughter-in-law working outside of the home. Joseph is her only child, and she has always been a very doting mother. She would not be as excited about his pending marriage as she appeared earlier unless she was convinced that his bride will dedicate herself entirely to his care and happiness.”

A slow smile spread across Lady F.’s face. “So Marjorie will be giving her notice and handing back her room at the House in a few months.” She turned to Sid. “After which point, it’s yours. And I won’t take no as an answer, Sid, so please don’t try.”

“He has no reason whatsoever to reject your generous offer,” Mrs. M. declared. She, too, turned to Sid. “And since you will have a place to stay at Montague House, I do _not_ want to hear about you walking back here in the dead of night. If it is dark, or cold, or rainy, you can just stay right where you already are.”

Sid knew better than to even think about thinking about arguing. Entertaining so much as a glimmer of an objection, he was sure, would cause him to be immediately murdered where he sat. “...Yeah, alright. Uh...thanks, Lady F.”

“Well!” exclaimed Father Brown. “Now that everything’s settled, would anyone else like seconds? Lady Felicia?”

“I wouldn’t normally, but...it’s so delicious, I can’t help myself.” After the Father had lifted another heavy slice onto her plate, she leaned towards Mrs. McCarthy. “This wedding...did Mrs. Mills have any thoughts on flowers? I should have plenty of options coming into bloom then, perhaps even a few of the exotics I just put into the conservatory. I’d be happy to help, especially since Marjorie is part of our little crowd up at the House.”

If Mrs. M. remembered how she’d felt about Lady F. half an hour earlier, she didn’t let the memory lessen the geniality in her response. “We touched briefly on flowers, but much of our attention was on the date, the number of attendees, things like that. I will mention you to her tomorrow, though.”

“Ring the House once you’ve spoken with her, and we can arrange a time for you both to come up and have tea and discuss what she might want. I can call Marjorie in from her work to join our talks, seeing as how it’s her wedding, too, and Sid can drive you and Mrs. Mills back and forth. I would _love_ to show you both the exotics. Marjorie was admiring them when they arrived; I’m sure she’d enjoy having them as part of her special day.”

“Judith will want very traditional arrangements,” Mrs. M. advised. “She does not even hold with engagement rings, though I understand that Joseph insisted on giving one to Marjorie when he proposed last night.”

“Well...it won’t hurt to at least look at them. The exotics, I mean.”

For a second it seemed as if the parish secretary, who knew every woman in Father Brown’s flock better than the Countess had yet had time to know her own household staff, would launch a contradiction. The idea of a tour of the conservatory of Montague House was apparently ample enticement, however, for her to hold her tongue. “No,” she agreed slowly. “I suppose there can be no objection to a bit of flower-viewing, even if she does prefer not to use them in the end...”

* * *

“...That worked out far better than I had any real expectation that it would,” Father Brown confided later, when the ladies had both gone and he and Sid were splitting the task of washing up. The women’s chatter had continued well past the end of the pie, and while their opinions had rarely been in perfect accord they seemed to have found enough similarities to get along on.

“Did it? I mean, they’re not glaring daggers at each other anymore, but that’s only ‘cause they’re aiming them at me instead.”

The Father chuckled. “They only gave you one hard look that I remember. And you _had_ rather earned it.”

_“You_ didn’t glare at me about being out in the wet and the cold.”

“No, but I’m not the mothering type. And you hardly need me to act as if I am.”

“No, thanks.” He shook his head over the plate he was drying. “Is this how it’s supposed to work? I can’t hardly remember my actual mother, so now there’re those two to compensate?”

“If that is how it’s worked out, Sid, I don’t think it will do you a bit of harm.”

“...Yeah,” Sid admitted after a long moment’s consideration. “It’s probably a good thing. Anyway, they’re both more than alright. Better than me by miles,” he joked. Father Brown passed him a gently chiding look along with the next plate. “What? I’m just saying that if I was Lady F., I wouldn’t be worrying about whether or not my chauffeur might have to walk a ways in the rain every now and again.” He set the dried dish aside, then another. “...I’m still surprised she didn’t go to Lady Frobisher’s instead of eating here, though.”

“Are you?”

“You’re not?”

“No.” Father Brown ran his dishcloth over a water glass distractedly. “One of the finest traits I have yet picked out in Lady Felicia’s character is her ability to see people for who they truly are. I like to think that it’s a knack she and I share, so I flatter myself that I understand her reasoning about tonight a little better than I have any right to at this point in our acquaintance.

“She had no idea about our Tuesday pie nights until this afternoon. But once she heard about them, and particularly once she’d heard about your role in it – remember, you are one of the few people from the village she has yet spent any one-on-one time with, and she already likes you quite a lot – she sensed that she would find something much more authentic and meaningful here than she would likely encounter at the high society event of a near-stranger.”

“...I get that,” Sid puzzled, “but she’s been trying so hard to get more invites to those kinds of dos. You should see how tired she looks after some of them. She has fun here and there, sure, but right now it’s a slog. She has to go to everything she can, put on the right face to everyone, so that she can get her foot in the door and have enough options to be able to pick the good stuff out and use her busy schedule as an excuse to skip the boring later. Even then, she’s still gonna have to go to parties she doesn’t like sometimes. Skipping out on dinner at the Frobishers’ to eat pie and talk about wedding flowers with us...it could set her back pretty bad, Father.”

“Perhaps temporarily. But Lady Felicia strikes me as the sort of person who can recover easily from most setbacks, particularly those that she walks into with her eyes open. And judging from her approach to Mrs. McCarthy tonight, I would add that she also has skin ‘thicker than an elephant’s,’ as you so poetically put it.”

“Yeah, sure, but still. She’s a nob. She’s supposed to have nob friends. ‘M not complaining if she wants to loaf around with us common folk, but what if she can’t get on with Lady Frobisher and her ilk because of things like tonight? If she doesn’t start making the ‘right kind’ of connections around here, don’t you think she’ll...” He trailed off, unwilling to say the final word and put the idea out into the world.

“Leave?” Father Brown finished for him.

“Yeah.”

“She might, yes. But you’re assuming a very long chain of events. Skipping a single invitation, particularly a last-minute one like I understand Lady Frobisher’s was, isn’t going to be her social downfall. If she had just married up into a baronetage or something like that, it might be. But she hasn’t; she is a Countess, and one with a great deal of wealth and force of personality besides. Honestly, Sid, I would be surprised if turning down Lady Frobisher’s offer doesn’t _help_ Lady Felicia’s social standing.”

He felt a little flare of hope. “...Yeah?”

“Yes. So try not to worry. She is perfectly capable of taking care of herself, and I don’t think she’ll be going anywhere any time soon. And if she does decide to leave, you’ll know before any of the rest of us.”

“I guess I probably will, if I’m hanging around the House more. Good gossip up there.” He frowned. “How am I supposed to keep track of everything between three different places, though? I’ll forget something I need somewhere I’m not. I know I will.”

Father Brown’s scrubbing slowed again. “I won’t take it personally if it will be easier for you to consolidate your belongings in just one or two places,” he said quietly.

“I’ll have to, ‘less I want to spend half my time looking for things. Which I don’t.” Sid paused. “But I wasn’t ever going to take _everything_ out of here, you know. Not unless you wanted me to, or needed the space, or...you know. Something like that.”

“Your room is your room for as long as you want it. Even if you do spend most of your nights elsewhere. Although,” the Father’s tone became sporting, “we may have to revisit the topic when Mrs. McCarthy and Lady Felicia start making dates to plan the flowers for _your_ wedding.”

“You’re stuck with me for a good while still, then,” Sid laughed. He’d have married Zin, who was still his secret even though he’d been unable to hide much else about his time in the city from the priest. It wasn’t something he’d ever brought up to her, but the more he thought back, the more convinced Sid was that he would have been happy to spend the rest of his life at Zinnia’s side. But she was God-knew-where, gone long ago from the flat they’d once shared, and with no forwarding address left according to Mr. Landis.

“Oh, I don’t know. This romance between Joseph Mills and Lady Felicia’s maid developed very quickly. I doubt they knew one another before she came to work at Montague House, especially if she’s from Hartwell. It could happen the same way for you.”

“‘Spose I’ve got enough girlfriends for it, haven’t I?” He hadn’t done anything more than engage in a little light flirting for six months after his return to Kembleford, still half-convinced that Zinnia might write or call or just show up and say she’d changed her mind. After the first time he’d fallen into bed with someone else, though, he hadn’t been able to stop. He had a reputation now as a result, but that was alright. He’d always felt like a bit of a gray figure in the village; tomcat was just a different facet of that persona.

“I will restrict myself,” the Father chuckled, “to saying only that I imagine you make it a point to be among the first to introduce yourself to any and all young ladies who are newly arrived in the village.” The last fork was in Sid’s hands, so Father Brown pulled the stopper out of the sink. As the water gurgled away, he went on. “...And to all the young men, as well.”

“Wondered if that might come up at some point.” He popped the fork into the drainboard with the rest of the dried dishes, but made no move to take anything to its proper place. “How long’ve you known?”

“I confess, Sid, I’ve suspected it for years. I thought that if I was correct you would discover that side of yourself while you were in London. When you came back, you seemed a little heartbroken, and I wasn’t sure if it was a woman or a man who had done it. Then, when you began looking around again, it was only at women. I accepted that I might have been wrong in my estimation until about six months ago. That was when I sensed that something had changed.”

Sid nodded. “‘S funny,” he pondered. “You wouldn’t think it could take this long to realize something like that. I mean, I’ve liked girls for as long as I’ve liked anyone. And I must’ve liked boys, too, because something made you think that I might. But I never even thought about a guy like I would a girl until one kissed me.” It had been Joey Mills, as a matter of fact, who had inspired that bit of self-discovery. If Mrs. Mills knew about that side of her son’s nature, it was no wonder she was so ecstatic over his engagement to Marjorie. “Sure do now, though.”

"You’re being very careful about it, I hope?”

“Didn’t you just say you aren’t the mothering type?” joked Sid. “...Yeah. I am,” he continued more soberly. He and Joey had gone no further than kissing and over-the-clothes groping, like a couple of horny but hesitant teenagers. The only man he’d risked a liaison with since then had taken him all the way, and it had ended at that, but Sid knew he could trust him to keep quiet. “I know what could happen. Not just with the police, but with other people. And I know how it would reflect on you, and on Mrs. M.”

“That isn’t why I brought it up. You know I have no objections. Only concerns.”

“Yeah, I know. And hey, if I ever _do_ end up really falling for a guy, we won’t even have to talk about my room again. I mean, it’s not like I could marry him.”

“Very true. Besides, if that happens then I will insist quite firmly that you keep your room, as an alibi if nothing else.”

“It’s a good one. Leastwise, I like it.” A beat passed as they shared a smile. “Oh, hey,” Sid remembered, “I meant to ask; did you figure out your homily? Mrs. M. said it was giving you a headache.”

“It did prove more challenging than usual,” the Father replied. “But the inspiration I needed came along in the end.”

“Don’t think I’ve ever felt inspired in a church,” Sid reflected. “You get inspired all the time in there, though. Strange, innit?” Then he shrugged. “Eh, maybe you just got dished out my portion of churchiness on top of yours. That’s fine; I don’t mind.”

“I know you don’t,” Father Brown said a bit ruefully. “In this instance, though, my inspiration came shortly after I left the church.”

“Oh, yeah?” He smirked. “Dinner was that good, was it?”

“It was,” the priest chuckled back. “I thought I might spend some time this evening making notes, since I didn’t have time earlier. But I’m afraid I won’t get much work done without a little _digestif_ first. I don’t suppose you’d care to join me?”

“‘Course.” After all, it wasn’t as if he’d seen the Father much more than he’d seen Mrs. M. these past few weeks. Their talk over the dishes had been good, but he’d like more time if he could get it. He gestured to the full drying rack. “What about these, though?”

Father Brown considered them for a moment. “We’ll need most of them again in the morning. Especially if you stay the night and have breakfast, which you might as well do since you don’t have to be ready for Lady Felicia until the afternoon. I think we’ll be able to argue our way out of trouble with Mrs. McCarthy using those points, don’t you?”

Sid grinned. “You know what? I’m willing to stick around and find out.”

“Good.” The Father’s hand landed on his shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze as they stepped away from the sink. “I was hoping you would be.”


	5. October 1955

Sid smiled as he heard the door to the police cottage open. There was a brief pause, nothing too long as to raise questions in the mind of anyone watching the Inspector enter his house, but a definite hesitation. Then the door closed, and footsteps approached the kitchen. They stopped at the threshold behind him. “...What on earth are you doing?”

He could hear the pleased surprise in the other man’s voice. “What’s it look like I’m doing?” he teased from his position in front of the hob. “Building a better mousetrap?”

“I don’t have mice, thank you.” Sullivan’s shoes tapped as he crossed the hard floor. Sid’s smile grew. Clean floors were a mild obsession of the Inspector’s. If he’d come all the way across the house still shod, the sight of an extra jacket hanging in the entryway must have really thrown him off. “...And I don’t think melted butter would attract them, anyway,” he added, peeking around Sid’s shoulder.

“So long as it attracts you, that’s good enough for me.”

“Mm...” Sullivan’s arm snaked around his waist. “There is something in this kitchen that I find quite attractive, now that you mention it.”

“...You’re feisty this evening. I usually have to get a drink or two in you before you’re that forward.” Sid glanced over and took in a rumpled suit, a slightly askew tie, and a minute slump of the shoulders. “Though you look like you might’ve already had a few.”

Sullivan rolled his eyes. “I have _not._ But I’m certainly going to now that I’m home.” Releasing Sid, he pulled a bottle of whisky from a cupboard. “Here,” he said a minute later, placing a glass beside the cooktop. “Don’t just throw it back, please. It’s not meant for that.”

“How uncivilized d’you think I am? I know the stuff you keep around isn’t moonshine.” He looked over again. “Anyway, least I took my shoes off when I came in.”

Sullivan’s gaze fell to his feet. “Oh, hell. I’ll have to get out the-”

“Not right now, you don’t.”

“The rugs-”

“Were literally made to have people walking on them,” Sid cut him off. “Even, sometimes, in shoes. And it’s not like it’s muddy out or anything.” They were having an unusually dry October, cool and pleasant when the wind wasn’t blowing.

“That’s disgusting.”

“What’s disgusting,” Sid retorted over the sizzle of the chicken he was slipping into the hot butter, “is that you’ve just come home from what was obviously a long day to find me cooking dinner for you as a surprise, and you’d rather go clean the bloody floors than have a sit, drink your drink, and tell me what’s got you so out of sorts that you’d come across the house in your shoes to start with.” Lidding the pan, he turned to face Sullivan, who had remained silent. “What, no reply to that?”

The Inspector’s cheeks reddened a shade. “What reply could I possibly make, Sid? You’re right.”

He seemed a bit more cowed than Sid had intended. “...It’s just that the rugs can stay as long as they like,” he said quietly. “And I can’t.”

“I know.”

Sid bent and kissed the sheepish expression from Sullivan’s face. “C’mon. Put your shoes away, ‘cause I know you’re dying to, then sit with me while I do the veg.”

He was already halfway through the carrots when Sullivan returned from the entryway. “...You’re very fast at that,” came an admiring observation as he took his seat.

“I get a lot of practice. I could probably chop pie veg in my sleep at this point.”

“Let’s not test that theory.”

“Yeah, it’d be pretty scary for you, waking up to find me on the next pillow over with a knife in my hand.”

“Precisely.”

They both chuckled. Sullivan leaned back in his chair, looking far more comfortable now that he’d shed his suit jacket and tie and undone the top button of his shirt. The beginnings of relaxation that had started to come through in his posture vanished, however, when a realization hit him. “...Sid. Today's Tuesday.”

“Yeah. That’s why I’m making a pie.”

“But why are you making a pie _here?"_

“Because you never come when I make them at the presbytery,” Sid shot back. “Even though you know you’re always invited.”

Sullivan averted his eyes and shifted in his seat. “You know how I feel about that. We’ve had this discussion before.”

Sid knew all too well how the other man felt about it, because the topic had come up at least a dozen times in the six months they’d been together. Sullivan had attended other events over the summer – several teas, a few Sunday dinners, a couple of birthdays – with ever-lessening qualms about the fact that Father Brown, Mrs. M., and Lady F. all knew what he and Sid were to each other. But he steadfastly refused to attend pie nights.

“Those meals are your time with Father Brown and Mrs. McCarthy,” he’d explained when Sid finally pried a reason out of him. “The three of you have been having Tuesday pie nights since you were practically still a child. I don’t want to intrude.”

“It’s not ‘intruding,’” Sid had retorted. “You’re _invited._ It’s a standing invitation. Has been from day one of us.”

It really had been, because Father Brown was the first safe person Sid saw on the morning after Sullivan came to the caravan to do a quick contraband check and ended up staying until dawn. He’d never made a habit of keeping the priest apprised of his sexual entanglements, but Sullivan had already felt like something more than a fling. Happy and excited by the sense of romance he hadn’t truly felt since Zinnia, Sid had ached to share his news with someone. “So, uh...I’m gonna need the bedroom for a while still.”

“Oh?” The priest had smiled into his morning tea. “No pending nuptials for the ladies to sink their teeth into planning?”

“Not unless somebody changed a few laws when I wasn’t looking. And even if I missed something like that, he wouldn’t have.”

A curious quirk of eyebrows. “...I don’t recall any new arrivals of late who might have turned your head.”

Sid could have just told him outright, of course, but he knew the Father was enjoying the puzzle. “Newish, I guess. He’s been around a bit.”

“Around Kembleford, or...?”

It was questions like that one that made Sid wonder how anyone who had met Father Brown could think he would be put off by frank talk about the matters of life. “Definitely around Kembleford,” he snickered. “‘Around’ around isn’t his thing.”

“And is this someone I’m already acquainted with, by any chance?”

“You’ve had one or two hundred conversations with him, yeah. Most of them prickly, least from his side. But he’s alright once you figure out how to get him to unroll and put his quills down.”

“...I don’t know that the Inspector would appreciate being compared to a hedgehog,” Father Brown chuckled as he reached his solution.

“Good thing he’s not here to hear, then, innit?”

The chuckle receded into an amused hum. “Tell me, Sid; do you set out to crack the toughest nuts, or do they simply come to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you’ve gotten through to Widow Bentley – who still won’t answer the door when anyone else knocks, by the way – and now our very reserved Detective Inspector. There have been plenty of other examples over the years, too, but none as impressive as those two.”

“Oh.” He’d shrugged. “I dunno. I guess it just happens. I mean, Sullivan came to me, but I don’t think he knew that was what he was doing when he left the station yesterday. I went to the Widow, sort of, by loafing around in the forest. I don’t know if she’d come to the door even if it was me knocking, though. I’ve never gone round the front way.”

“Ah...perhaps that’s the secret of your success, or at least a part of it. You use a different means of approach than most people would even think to try. But then, you’ve always tended to do things your own way. And thank goodness for that, because it’s served all of us well on so many occasions.”

“And not so well on plenty of others,” Sid quipped.

“The positive results far outweigh the negative ones,” the Father said firmly. “But if you feel the need to add to your list of wins, you might see if you can get the Inspector to come to dinner tonight.”

“That’s not even a challenge. Who’d pass on one of Mrs. M.’s pie crusts?”

As it had turned out, Sullivan was that person, and the difficulty of getting him to a Tuesday dinner was starting to piss Sid off. “Yeah, well,” he said, starting in on the onion with quick, aggressive chops, “I know you say it’s family time, and you’re right, it is. That’s why Lady F. comes by for it on the regular. And that’s why you’re always invited, too.” Suddenly overwhelmed by frustration, he put the knife down. “You know tomorrow’s our six-month anniversary, don’t you?”

“...Yes.”

“Alright, then maybe what you don’t know is that six months is about six times longer than any of them have seen me be with any one person. I reckon they were all starting to wonder if I was ever going to stop jumping from bed to bed before you came along. And even though we all know why I can’t be strictly exclusive with you, at least not yet, it makes them happy to know that you’re a constant in my life.”

“I doubt Mrs. McCarthy is quite as ecstatic about us as you’re making her out to be.”

“Mrs. M.’s the one who suggested I come over here tonight.”

Shock at that news caused Sullivan to open and close his mouth wordlessly several times before he finally spoke. “But she doesn’t...I mean, of the three of them, she’s-”

“The most old-fashioned on some things, yeah,” Sid acknowledged. “Would she prefer it if I was in something serious with a woman instead of with another man? Sure she would. But does she think any less of either of us for being together? No. Or if she does, she’s doing a respectable job of hiding it. And I don’t believe she’s hiding anything. In fact, I'd say she probably considers it a blessing that I’m at least with someone who’ll keep me out of most of the other kinds of trouble I've gotten up to before. Say what you like about Mrs. M., but when she wants to find a silver lining, she comes up with some good ones.

“...The point is,” he went on when Sullivan remained pensively silent, “you _are_ family. You skipping pie nights six months into you and me is more of an intrusion than you being at one before we were together would have been.

“I know you can’t come to all of them, because it might raise suspicions on the outside. But coming to none of them, ever, feels off.” His eyes were burning, though he wasn’t sure whether that was due to his upset or the pile of onion that was still on the cutting board in front of him. “It feels like...like you don’t _want_ to be family.” The Inspector’s expression held stoic. Sid felt something inside of himself tense up and prepare to recoil in pain. “Is that...what it is? You don’t want...are we not...?”

The agony building in his chest must have shown on his face, because a shiver finally broke Sullivan’s stillness. He turned his head away in its aftermath, but Sid had already seen his lips trembling. “I never meant for it to hurt you,” came an apologetic whisper. “My not coming to pie nights. I know how important they are to you. To all of you.

“At first, it really was that I didn’t want to intrude. But as time went on, I realized what you just said, or part of it. That it wouldn’t be an intrusion, because...”

He drew a deep breath and groped for his whiskey. Without returning his head to a neutral position, he drained the glass, exactly as he’d prodded Sid not to do earlier. “...You know I don’t have much of a relationship with my father.”

“Yeah.” That was just good sense, based on what Sid had heard of the prick.

“And I told you my mother died when I was quite young.”

“Right. I remember.” That had been a strange night, talking about their so-different childhoods. Sullivan had made it clear that he was no more impressed by Sid’s toddler-abandoning mother than Sid was by Sullivan’s distant and disapproving father. Their lovemaking afterward had been half vengeful, half tender, as they took out their anger at their terrible parents and simultaneously tried to soothe the hurt those parents had inflicted.

“I’m not...I don’t know how to be in a family, Sid. If I ever really had one, I was too small to remember it. Even then, I doubt it was remotely as open and affectionate as yours is. Between that and what I suspect is a natural emotional reservation, I am categorically awful at expressing soft feelings. You said it yourself; normally I need a few drinks just to start flirting. We’ve been together _six months_ , for pity’s sake, and I still choke when I try to tell you how much...” He closed his eyes tightly. “...How much you mean to me.”

Sid gulped. “I-”

“If I can’t even do that,” Sullivan cut him off, “then how am I supposed to do anything other than sour the perfect and frankly beautiful rapport that the rest of you have? I don’t want to do that. You love that atmosphere. You rely on it, thrive in it. As much as I wish I knew how to join you all in your harmony, I would rather stand back and watch you revel in it than risk making it anything less than what it is.”

He had returned his glass to the table after he’d emptied it, but his hand was still wrapped around it. Sid pushed the cutting board aside and stretched over to brush his thumb down his clench-whitened knuckles. At first there was no reaction to his touch. Then Sullivan loosened his grasp on the tumbler and allowed their fingers to be laced together. “Wouldn’t say you’re _categorically_ awful at it,” Sid ventured. “I mean, all that just now was pretty sweet.”

Sullivan sent him a sidewise glance. Emboldened, Sid continued. “When you came home earlier, you were flirty enough to catch me off guard. And you said you hadn’t had anything to drink yet, so that’s something. That was all you.”

Down to a three-quarters profile now. “Besides,” Sid pressed, “you might be able to get better at it, with practice. I’d say you already have. Even if how you’ve been so far tonight is the closest to warm and fuzzy as you ever get, I’m not gonna hold it against you. None of us are. We’ve all got things we’re bad at, and we all know what we’re getting into when it comes to you. You’re a hedgehog of a person, but that’s alright.”

Their eyes finally met full-on again, Sullivan’s equal parts grateful and incredulous beneath their damp sheen. _“...Excuse_ me? A what?”

“I like hedgehogs,” Sid asserted. Father Brown had been of the opinion that Sullivan wouldn’t appreciate the comparison, but Sid thought he could make it work. “Sure, they’re sharp little bastards, and they get defensive if you so much as look at them funny. But they’re dead useful, catching all the bugs and other things you might not want in your garden like they do. And they’re cute as hell when they’re feeling friendly. It takes time and effort to get a hedgehog to uncurl, but I think it’s worth it, if it might get you to all the good stuff it’s trying to hide under those spines.

“...Anyway,” he wound down as Sullivan’s hand tightened around his, “you might not know how to be in a family, but sitting home by yourself eating bologna sandwiches for dinner is no way to learn.”

For a long moment, nothing more was said. Then Sullivan cleared his throat and broached a question in a slightly strained voice. “I...thank you for that. For all of that. But how did you know I was planning to have a sandwich for dinner before I discovered that you’d commandeered my kitchen?”

“‘Cause it’s practically the only food you have in the entire house. It’s a good thing I brought everything I needed with me, or we’d be looking forward to a bologna pie. And not even a pie, seeing as how you’re out of flour. Though, being fair,” he admitted, “I’d have wasted any flour you _did_ have around.”

Sullivan frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Remember how I said we’ve all got things we’re bad at? Well, one of mine is pie crusts. They always turn out wrong, somehow. Mrs. M.’s had me make about a million of them in front of her for practice, but she can’t figure out what I’m missing, either. My fillings are alright,” he added as Sullivan began to look crestfallen. “When the crust comes out shite, we can just eat that part. It’s nowhere near as good as the complete pie, but it’s edible. Better than bologna sandwiches, at least.”

“I’m sure it will be,” Sullivan said with a tiny smile. He released Sid’s hand. “But not if you don’t finish making it. The chicken already smells better than bologna ever has.”

The chicken. Bloody hell.

Sid bolted from his seat and rushed to the pan that he’d left unattended for far longer than usual. Fortunately, he’d left the heat low, and while the side of the meat that had been against the metal was browner than usual it was far from burned. Heaving a sigh of relief, he turned the pieces over and returned to the table. “That was close,” he said in answer to Sullivan’s look. “I’d’ve never forgiven myself if I’d scorched the first pie I made you.”

“I would probably still have eaten it.”

“Eh, worst case scenario, I could have run to Mrs. M.’s and begged some off her.” He picked up where he’d left off with the onion, the aroma of which no longer seemed to be bothering his eyes. “She was cooking chicken tonight, too.”

“She’s at home? You don’t mean to say that they aren’t having pie night at all because you’re here instead?!”

“Nah. Just would have been me and her. The Father left yesterday for a big church meeting. He’s gone the rest of the week.”

“Oh.” A beat passed. “...Is there a new pope or something?”

Sid smirked at the mild disdain in Sullivan’s tone. Years spent in the company of Father Brown and Mrs. M. had given him a bit more respect for all things holy than the Inspector possessed, but he was never going to be a religiously-inclined man. “No, but I guess the old one’s making a bunch of changes to the calendar. Axing feasts, stuff like that. Mrs. M. doesn’t expect to be well pleased about the specifics. She’s practically ringing her hands waiting for him to come home Saturday and tell her everything.”

“Your normal Tuesday routine might have taken her mind off of it for a while.”

“That’s what I said. Not that I didn’t want to surprise you – though I’m not looking forward to you seeing how screwy my crusts can be – but I thought the same thing. She told me she can’t help but dwell on it when she’s at the presbytery, even with me around to distract her. So she shoved me out the door with all our ingredients and orders to feed you a decent meal. Don’t ask me how she knows about your bologna sandwich habit,” he joked, raising his hands. “I didn’t tell her.”

“I really don’t eat sandwiches for dinner every night,” Sullivan insisted. “I do know how to cook some things.” He stood up and moved to pour himself another glass of whisky. Coming across Sid’s untouched tumbler, which was still sitting on the counter, he paused. “Are you not going to drink this?”

“Forgot all about it in the rush to finish these up before the chicken’s done. I’ll be ready for it once the pie’s in the oven. And I know you don’t eat sandwiches every night. You wouldn’t be nearly as pretty as you are if you did that.”

“...I’m choosing to take ‘pretty’ as the compliment you meant it to be rather than as the insult most men would find it.”

“It _was_ a compliment. Being pretty doesn’t make a man any less of a man. Everyone can see that you’re pretty, but if anyone knows _exactly_ how much of a man you are, it’s me.”

“That’s true,” Sullivan allowed as he sat back down. A second later, he let out a little gasp.

“What is it?” Sid asked without looking up from the green beans. He really needed to get the more fibrous stuff into the pan soon...

“You were very close to your finger for a moment. I thought you were about to cut yourself.”

“I hardly ever cut myself cooking.”

“Still, you might slow down and be more careful. Just because I admired your speed earlier doesn’t mean you have to try and top it to keep me impressed.”

“I’m not. But I don’t want to lose any drippings, so I have to hurry.”

“Sid, the pie doesn’t have to be absolutely perfect. It will still be good, even if you do ‘lose drippings.’ Whatever that means.”

“I already told you it’s not going to be perfect, because the crust will be a disaster. But the filling...I know how to make a near-perfect filling. I’m not letting that slip. Not on your first pie.” He stood up and moved towards the pan, which was calling him with its gentle hissing simmer. “Anyway, I’m done with the hard veg now. Back on track.”

He had not, so far as he could tell, lost a single drop of his cooking liquid to overheating. Feeling easier despite the fact that he still had to tackle the crust, Sid returned to the table. “You never told me about your day,” he said, nodding towards Sullivan’s second glass of whiskey. “What happened? I hope it wasn’t a murder,” he added. “The Father’d be disappointed to miss one of those.”

“Yes, never mind the prospective victim’s feelings,” Sullivan retorted drily.

“If I was the victim, I’d want you both working on it. No chance the killer would get away then.”

“...If you were the victim, Sid, Father Brown and I would either be completely useless or so full of blind rage that we’d be the ones under a murder charge when all was said and done.”

Sid shook his head. “Nah, I can’t picture him killing anyone, or letting you do it, either. And I don’t think either of you even knows how to be useless.”

“You’re welcome to think whatever you like about it, so long as you don’t actually get yourself murdered and force us to find out. But setting that cheerful topic aside, there hasn’t been a death. Today was school visit day.”

Sid’s knife hovered above a mushroom as he tried to process the last bit. “...It was what?”

“School visit day.” Sullivan shuddered. “The Sergeant and I had to go to three – _three_ – different primary schools and talk to the students.”

“We never had that when I was in school.”

“It’s a new initiative. I believe the idea is that the children are more likely to listen to advice about being safe and staying out of trouble if it comes from authority figures whom they don’t already see on a daily basis.” He paused. “Tell me; if a policeman had come to your school and lectured you on kerb drills and not getting into cars with strangers, would you have listened?”

“Think I’d’ve been laughing my arse off that he thought I didn’t already know how to cross a street without getting flattened or kidnapped.”

“Mm. I thought you might. Well, you needn’t worry that the next generation will be bereft of reprobates. I met plenty of young hyenas today who preferred giggling and whispering to paying attention. The ones who survive zebra crossings and offers of free candy will probably turn out just like you.”

“They’ll do alright, then. Also, j’you just call me a hyena?”

“Yes, I did. And there’s no point in arguing with the comparison, because we can both list a dozen shared character traits.”

“Fair enough. But you like hyenas, right?”

Sullivan cocked his head and gave him a withering look. “Obviously, Sidney.”

“Well, I had to check, since you weren’t planning to actually say it.” The soft pieces of the filling were ready for the pan; now came the hard part. “So, you didn’t like going around and talking to the kids?”

“Have you ever spoken to small children? It’s dreadful.”

Sid frowned. “I didn’t know you hated littles.” He certainly didn’t himself; half or more of the village children would stop their play and cross the street to say hello if they saw him on the opposite side. Maybe he ought to have Sullivan teach him that kerb drill thing so he could make sure they didn’t do it wrong. There wasn’t nearly the traffic in Kembleford that there had been on the London streets of his early youth, but it was increasing with each year. The ‘hyenas’ who hadn’t listened to the Inspector might very well listen to Sid and be better off for the advice.

“I don’t hate them individually. Interacting with one or two intelligent and well-behaved children at a time can be pleasant enough. But this was mayhem...”

Sullivan began to rattle off details of the chaos in triplicate he’d survived that day while Sid mixed and rolled out the crust recipe that he knew by heart but could never get right. For all that the other man was complaining, the mood in the kitchen was lighthearted and warm. If every night of his life could be like this, Sid thought dreamily – every third or fourth night, even; he knew how to be reasonable – then he would have no problem dying happy.

“It looks right to me,” Sullivan broke off his oratory to state.

Sid had just put the final crimp into the edge of the pie. “...Huh?”

“The crust. It looks like I imagine a pie crust should before it goes in the oven.”

“Oh. Yeah...it usually does look alright at this point. Something happens in there, though, while it’s cooking, and it comes out like rocks, or weird porridge, or wet cheese. Once it just sort of melted off completely and piled up round the edges. If Mrs. M. was a little less grounded of a person, I think she’d have called that one cursed and made me throw it out. As it was, she crossed herself an extra time before we dug into the filling.”

He lingered beside the oven once the door was closed behind the pie. Maybe if he stood guard over it like this it would turn out all right...

“Sid. What are you doing?”

“I’m...waiting for the pie.”

“Surely it takes more than a few seconds.”

“Well, yeah. A little more than that.”

A sigh sounded. “You know you’re doing the same thing as Mrs. McCarthy, don’t you?”

“...No? She’s not baking a pie. She’s doing chicken tonight because she wanted to get some stock made up ahead of winter. You wouldn’t believe the amount of chicken soup she takes around the parish during the cold and flu season.”

Another sigh, then footsteps. Arms wrapped around his waist. “You’re wringing your hands,” Sullivan murmured beside his ear, “and wishing you could make time pass faster.”

“I just want to know what’s gone wrong with it this time. Then you can be disappointed, we can eat the filling, and the evening can go on.”

“I’m _not_ going to be disappointed.”

“You say that now. You haven’t seen the aftermath of my pie crusts.” Why had he even tried to make a crust? He could have just done the filling and put it in bowls. It wouldn’t have been a pie, but it also wouldn’t have been an embarrassment.

The hands on his hips tugged him around to face their owner. “I don’t care about the crust, Sid. What I care about is the fact that I came home from a long and taxing day, expecting to spend the night alone with a cold sandwich, and instead found you cooking me a hot – and from the smell of it, delicious – meal. Even if it all goes wrong, including the filling, and we end up eating bologna despite all your efforts, this will still be an infinitely better evening than the one I’d anticipated having.”

Sid couldn’t help but smile. “All that from a man who thinks he’s bad at expressing soft feelings,” he whispered.

“Well, I’ve had a couple of drinks now, haven’t I?”

“You keep saying bitter things like that this close to the oven and I might just blame you for whatever happens to the pie.”

“So long as you stop blaming yourself.”

Sullivan kissed him then, long, searching. One hand rose to cup Sid’s jaw, while the other steered him gently backward until he bumped into the counter. When the kiss ended, Sid kept his eyes closed. He didn’t want to look yet; he just wanted to savor the weight and heat that was pressed against him from chest to thigh. “...Might turn out too sweet if we keep that up in front of it,” he remarked. “Or too salty,” he smirked a moment later, “depending on how far we go.”

“That isn’t how cooking works,” Sullivan replied with amusement. “My highest culinary achievement may only be pork chops, but I know that much. And I also know that you can’t give what you’re cooking too much attention, like you’re doing right now.” His hand slipped between them and began to play with the button of Sid’s trousers. “You need a distraction until it’s done. How much time do we have?”

It was a hell of a temptation, but... “I’ve never baked in your oven before. It could be more or less than it is at the presbytery.”

Nails stroked their way down the thin fabric alongside his fly. “How long, Sid?”

He had to focus to remember that they were talking about the pie, because Sullivan's other hand was sliding up beneath his shirt and that question had been asked bare millimeters from his lips. “...Forty minutes? Forty-five?”

“Plenty of time for me to show you what I can’t say sober, then.”

* * *

Half an hour later, Sid checked his watch and let out a long, thankful breath. They hadn’t gone over their time; in fact, he could spare another ten minutes or so to just lay in bed and hold the man who was still sprawled out on top of him. “...You really won’t be disappointed about the crust?”

“Oh my _God,_ Sidney.”

“I’m sorry! I’m just nervous about it.” Strangely nervous, in fact. He always fretted over his crusts, but for some reason he was more anxious than ever over tonight’s.

“I know you are,” Sullivan breathed against his throat. “...I know. But you don’t have to be. Not for my sake, at least. Whatever happens, it will be _fine.”_

“If I let you convince me of that,” Sid risked, “will you let me convince you the same about being part of a family?”

Sullivan briefly tensed. “I’m...not opposed to trying to be convinced of that.”

“You mean you’ll give it a go?”

“...Yes. I’ll even...that is, I’ll try...to come to dinner next Tuesday.”

Sid beamed so broadly towards the ceiling that it made his cheeks hurt. “Really?”

“Really.”

He squeezed him joyfully. “Good. Thanks for uncurling a bit. I like it when you let me see a bit of soft underbelly.”

Sullivan squirmed as Sid’s fingers tickled over his flank and in towards his navel. “Stop,” he ordered, laughing.

“I really do appreciate it,” Sid said as he returned his hand to the small of Sullivan’s back. “You trying. I know it’s hard, but it will be worth it.”

“Yes, well...hyenas need their cackle.”

“Uh...what?”

“What? Oh. A group of hyenas is called a cackle.”

“I thought it was just a pack.”

“No. It’s a cackle.”

“A cackle of hyenas. Alright. Suits me.”

“Yes,” Sullivan teased. “It does.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“And yet...”

Sid tried to retaliate with a pinch to the firm arse just south of where his hands were resting. As soon as he’d delivered it, however, he discovered the folly of his location beneath Sullivan. Pinned down, and prevented by years of police training from even rolling into a more advantageous position, all Sid could do was take the Inspector’s payback until his ridiculous situation had reduced him to actual cackling.

“...Are you done?” Sullivan grinned against his shoulder when he finally stopped shaking with mirth.

“Are _you?”_

“For now. But only,” he went on as Sid mock-groaned, “because you probably need to take the pie out of the oven.”

Sid was halfway down the stairs before he realized that Sullivan was cracking up behind him. At least he hadn’t hurt him when he’d flipped him onto the other side of the mattress and bolted. As for the laughter at his renewed panic over their dinner...well, Sid would just have to even that score for dessert.

It was chilly downstairs after the heat of the bed. Sid was made even more aware of the fact that he’d run to the kitchen without a stitch of clothing on when he opened the oven. The blast wasn’t quite painful, but it wasn’t exactly pleasant after the first second or two, either. Wincing, he reached in for the pie.

“You standing stark naked in my kitchen with a fresh pie in your hands,” Sullivan commented from the doorway a minute later, “is the single sexiest thing I have ever seen or imagined in my entire life.”

Sid heard the remark, but he was too consumed with studying the pastry before him to respond properly. “...Mm.”

“As much as I’m enjoying the view, however,” came more words that he didn’t really register, “you should probably wear _something_ while we eat.” Sullivan, clad in his dressing gown and holding another that Sid had left at the police cottage weeks earlier, drew up to him as he spoke. Seeing the pie, his eyes widened. "That looks perfect.”

“It can’t be,” Sid answered darkly as he set dinner down on a trivet. “There’s always something wrong. It’s just teasing me.”

Sullivan blinked at him. “...Sid, it’s a pie. It has no consciousness. It is _not_ teasing you.”

“You’ll see. We’ll cut into it, and it’ll shatter into a jillion pieces, or the inside will be goopy, or...something.” There was always something. Always. “It wants us to think it’s perfect so that it’s an even bigger disappointment when we find the flaw.”

A disbelieving _tsk_ came from the man at his elbow. “Fine, then. Earlier you wanted to know what was going to be wrong with it; now we’re going to find out.” Sullivan shoved the dressing gown he was carrying into Sid’s arms. “Put this on and get out the plates while I cut into it.”

He obeyed, biting his lip as Sullivan carried the pie to the table. The mess from making the crust was still all over one side of the surface, but Sullivan – whose fault it was anyway, for coaxing Sid upstairs before he could clean up – said nothing.

“Sit,” he commanded, pulling out a chair. When Sid had done so, he took the plates from his hands and put them down beside the pie. Then he rolled back his sleeves, picked up a knife, and thrust it smoothly and easily in.

Sid’s breath caught. No; no. Don’t get excited. There was still so much that could be wrong. The inside, the texture, the flavor...had he remembered the salt? He knew he’d made a joke about salt when Sullivan had all but mounted him next to the stove, but that really _wasn’t_ how cooking worked.

“No monsters yet,” Sullivan observed wryly as he crossed the center. Almost immediately after that, he paused. “Oh...”

“Oh, what?” Sid begged.

“Nothing’s wrong,” came an assurance. “It just smells amazing.” The knife began moving again. “The combination of the crust and the filling came up, and you’ve said so many times now that it would be wrong that I was expecting there to actually be a problem. But I don’t see how anything that smells like this does could possibly have something wrong with it.”

“...I hope you’re right,” Sid said weakly. He didn’t dare believe it himself, not yet. Then again, this was the furthest one of his pies had ever gotten without the error showing itself. But heartbreak could still be lurking, oh so very easily.

When the pie had been cut into exact eighths, Sullivan didn’t hesitate to move forward with extraction. The first slice came out cleanly. More cleanly, Sid thought, than it should have come out when it was still so hot. It hadn’t had proper time to cool before they’d cut into it. Maybe it had overset. Maybe _that_ was the flaw...

“Here.” A plate was suddenly in front of him. “Taste it.”

Oh, God, it looked right. It all looked right. It all _smelled_ right. But...could it be...? “I...I can’t.”

“Sid...” There was more pity in Sullivan’s voice than exasperation. “All right. I suppose it’s only fair. You’ve had to drag me kicking and screaming into pie nights; I’ll drag you into the pie.” Dishing up a second slice – it came out as neatly as the first had, and the sight made Sid feel like he was cutting up onions again – he took his own seat and picked up his fork. With a complete lack of fanfare, Sullivan sliced off a small bite, tucked it into his mouth, and immediately winced.

Crushed, Sid turned his head away. Of course it was wrong. So close, so close, and he’d wanted it to be right so badly... Why had he ever bothered to hope, when he’d known it wasn’t going to happen? “...What is it?” he whispered morosely.

The soft laughter his question drew made him dare a look back. Sullivan was shaking his head and wearing a grin unlike any that Sid had ever seen on him before. “What it is,” he announced, “is the best pie that has ever been made in this town, and quite possibly just ever.”

“You’ve never had Mrs. M.’s.” Even if the crust was somehow right, there was no way it was better than the parish secretary’s.

“I don’t need to. I know this is better.”

“There’s...it can’t...” Sid struggled. “You _winced!”_

“You only pulled it from the oven three minutes ago. It’s _hot.”_

“...Oh.” Right. He’d forgotten about that part, even though he’d just been thinking about it. “So...it’s...it’s alright?”

Sullivan looked at him as if he was the most pathetic simpleton he’d ever laid eyes on. Then he took a second bite and, without breaking his gaze, let the pleasure of it show on his face. “...Try it yourself if you don’t believe me, Sid,” he said when he’d swallowed.

He had to be exaggerating. Not that he’d ever exaggerated before, when some of those same little twitches had come through during sex, but what he was saying just wasn’t possible.

Sid’s hand trembled as he lifted the first sliver towards his mouth. Dropping it onto his tongue, he closed his eyes and searched for what Sullivan had not found. It was hot, just like he’d said it was, but it was also dense, and moist, and flavorful, and balanced, and flaky, and...just...

Perfect. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

“I imagine this is the only time I’ll ever hear that phrase spoken at a pie night,” Sullivan drolled. “...Are you all right?” he asked a moment later, his tone growing concerned. “You’re pale all of a sudden.” Sid felt fingers land on his forearm and squeeze. “Sid?”

“It’s fine,” he managed. He thought the room might spin if he opened his eyes, but he could picture the reaction saying as much would inspire. “I’m...I’m fine. It’s just...a bit much. Overwhelming.”

“Well, it’s the culmination of a decade of effort, so I suppose that makes sense.” He withdrew his hand. “It really is an excellent pie. You should be proud. Mrs. McCarthy certainly will be.” Faint sounds indicated another bite being processed. “Are you _sure_ you’re all right?” he pressed. “As accomplished as this must make you feel, it shouldn’t have sent you into a coma.”

“It didn’t.” He forced his eyes open. “I’m sorry, I just...”

Sullivan put his fork down. “What’s wrong? It can’t be the pie.”

“It’s not. I mean, it _is,_ but not...like you think.” He’d been waiting so long for a perfect crust, a perfect filling, a perfect pie. For it to have happened tonight of all nights, with this meal, with this man... “I’ll be right back,” he said, rising.

“Sid, what-?!”

To Sid’s relief, Sullivan didn’t follow him across the police cottage. He stopped just short of the front door and leaned his forehead against the cool wall. A moment; he needed a moment to himself to grasp the implications of what had occurred.

No, not _implications,_ because he didn’t believe in signs, or fate, or miracles. Things happened, and people reacted. That was life; that was everything. This titanic coincidence only had implications if he wanted it to. And oh, God, did he want it to.

His jacket was hanging right next to him. He didn’t even have to lift his head to retrieve his wallet and remove a thin piece of paper from it. The half-sheet was discoloring with age and beginning to come apart at its folds from re-reading, but it was still perfectly legible.

He could hear Sullivan’s fingers drumming impatiently against the tabletop from halfway across the sitting room. As soon as Sid stepped into the kitchen, the Inspector’s head whipped around. The deep crevice that was always present between his eyebrows when he knew he was missing something on a case had appeared, and he hadn’t touched his pie since Sid’s departure. “I was going to give you about thirty more seconds before I came after you,” he said as he stood up and reached out for him. “Please, Sid, tell me what’s wrong. You should be happy, but you’re not.”

Sid stopped short of those waiting arms and held out the paper he’d taken from his wallet. “I need you to read this. Out loud,” he tacked on when Sullivan, now visibly confused, began to open it.

“Out loud?”

“Yeah. I’ve never heard it in anyone else’s voice before. I...I want to hear it in yours.”

“...All right.” His eyes skipped down the page rapidly, surveying the length of the text, then returned to the top. “There are three kinds of people in this world,” he read out. “Pans (that’s me), fillings (you, and a damn good one), and crusts. You’ll find that perfect crust someday, Siddie, and when you do, it’s going to be beautiful. XOXO forever, your Zinnia.”

Sid waited, watching him, as Sullivan read silently through the note once more. “Whoever this Zinnia is,” the Inspector finally said, “she was right about two things. Your perfect crust really is beautiful, and you _are_ a damn good one, despite your best efforts in the opposite direction.”

He clearly hadn’t gotten there yet. “I dunno how good I am,” Sid shrugged. “But I’m definitely a filling.”

Sullivan seemed to sense that Sid was hinting at a deeper meaning to the message. “And she was the pan that...cooked you?”

He looked mildly put off by the image, and his expression drew a small laugh from Sid. “Right. In a few different ways. She’s still doing it, actually.” He plucked the note from Sullivan’s fingers and held it reverently in his own. “‘Cause this – she – made me realize that I didn’t just bake my perfect crust tonight. I _found_ my perfect crust, too.”

“Sid, I don’t...oh.” Understanding washed over Sullivan’s face. _“Oh._ I’m...?”

“A crust. Yeah.” Sid stepped forward and kissed him softly. _“...My_ crust.”

“That is a completely absurd model of human behavior,” Sullivan stated. As he spoke, he snaked his arms around Sid’s waist and pulled him into a gentle embrace. “But I love it anyway.”

“...Me, too,” Sid whispered.

They might have stood together like that indefinitely had Sid’s stomach not interrupted with a displeased-sounding rumble. Sullivan chuckled. “I suppose we should take that as an admonishment about not wasting the _other_ perfect pie in the room.” He pulled back and studied Sid’s face. “Do you think you can eat without being quite so precious about it now?”

“You’ll be wishing I’d go back to being precious about it once I get started. I’m starving.”

“Mm. Well, I’m used to you eating like a hyena, anyway. And you do enough other precious things to make the uncouthness worth overlooking.”

“You’re getting good at those soft feelings,” Sid smiled.

“A perfect crust can’t be too hard, I’ve learned.”

“No. If it’s too hard, it can’t hold its filling just right.”

“We can’t have that.”

“I mean, it happens,” Sid allowed, not wanting the conversation to come back to haunt them on some night when Sullivan was feeling prickly again. “No reason to throw the whole pie out, just because the crust’s a bit stiff every now and then. In fact,” he teased, “sometimes I like to make my crust a bit stiff on purpose.”

“If you aren’t careful, you’ll do so right now. Which won’t get either of us fed.” Sullivan turned them around so that Sid was a mere half-step from the chair he’d left pushed out earlier. “...Eat, Siddie,” he breathed into his ear before he released him, “and then you can play with your food all you want.”

Sid dropped back into his seat in a state of bliss. The pie on his plate was still warm, and the second bite was as perfect as the first had been.

Tomorrow, he decided, he’d stop by the florist on his way to the presbytery. A nice bouquet was the least he could do to thank Mrs. M. for her part in this meal, this night, his entire life. And when she heard that he’d _finally_ found what had been missing from his pies, Sid knew that she would read his joy and be satisfied that it had been worth waiting for.


End file.
